Welcome back to the Christianity and Business Podcast, an initiative of the RCW Dunham College of Business at Houston Christian University. I'm your host, Darren Sheer, and this is a show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate biblical values into business. Now, on today's episode, we're joined by Gary Harpst. Gary is CEO of Lead First, and he's known for his fusion of faith and work, fostering agile organizations. With four decades of experience, he founded three successful businesses, one which merged and was sold to Microsoft. And he's authored three impactful books and educated on business faith intersections. As a veteran Christian CEO, his journey encompasses business trials and growth. His latest book is Built to Beat Chaos. And it makes the biblical case that we are all created to overcome chaos. And Lead First, under his guidance, provides a whole business, whole person health strategy for kingdom impact businesses. Leadfirst.ai is the website. Also Gary Harpst, that's H-A-R-P-S-T.com. Those are his websites. I'll mention those again here toward the end of the interview. Gary, welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast.
SPEAKER_00Well, thanks, Darren. I am I'm really looking forward to this.
SPEAKER_01Same year. So when did you first realize God wanted to be involved in your work in the marketplace?
SPEAKER_00Well, it was kind of a two-step process. I'm I'm an analytical person, degrees in information science. And so I'm always trying to design something or build something. And I noticed in my mid-20s that there was this peculiar behavior of humans where we would say one thing and do another. I noticed this in me, I noticed in the people around me. And it caused me to um start doing research. You know, that's what analysts do. So I ended up uh not finding good answers until I got to the Bible. And then the Bible really explains sort of this inner conflict and some brokenness inside of us. And that led me to um uh what a relief, by the way. It was it explained what was wrong with me, and it gave me an answer in the gospel. And that led me then into a Bible study with a couple of other friends. And um, my wife's my wife says I'm kind of black and white, you know. It's and in my in in that Bible study, I remember us having a conversation saying, Well, if this thing about Jesus is true and faith is true and God is true, shouldn't it affect all of our life, not just Sunday morning? And I just didn't want to be in a situation in my life where uh I said one thing and did another when it came to faith. So we prayed about it, and and my one partner who is more entrepreneurial, um, said, you know, great way to grow in your faith is to run a business. And boy, was he right. So that's that's how it got started in a Bible study with the question, how do we make this a 24 by seven relationship? That's that's really how it got started.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Is there a a story that would maybe highlight the contrast from kind of before you made that had that recognition, that revelation, and then kind of what changed after that?
SPEAKER_00Well, you know, I mean, in my more recent book, um, we talk about chaos and you know, all lives are chaotic in one sense or another. It's just how you look at the chaos. And I found the before and after difference was my purpose was clearer. And, you know, if you've got a pile of tubifores set, we we build a house out in the woods and we had a big pile of tubifores setting here, and they look like chaos. I just dropped off truckload after truckload of materials. Then you pull out the blueprint, and the blueprint starts to tell you what to do with the tubifores. And so for me, becoming a believer, it began to shape chaos or shape what to do with my life and my purpose. And so, an example is the way we made decisions. My partners and I uh never had we're we're still partners after 40-some years. And uh the way we made decisions, big big business decisions, is we would just get together and pray. And we didn't come to the meeting trying to convince, I've got my idea and I want to get two votes from my partners. That never happened. What happened was we would just talk openly about our choices, we'd look at scripture and we'd pray. And um, we never had a split vote in our in 40 years, not one. Uh, we were always on the same page. And what that meant was there was unity and peace in our relationship, where there's never any recrimination. Oh, you made a mistake here. None of that. And so people who know us say the thing that they don't really understand or gets their attention is we've stayed friends for 40 years, and that doesn't usually happen in business partnerships.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And the the answer is there was something more important to us than the business.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so purpose and prayer. I mean, it sounds like those two things really marked the difference between what business was like prior to inviting God into the the operation and your decisions and what it was like after that. And uh and it worked out pretty well. I mean, your your company got acquired, it was sold to Microsoft in 2000. Um, which you know, I guess that was kind of like right after the or right before the dot com, no, right after the dot com.
SPEAKER_00No, right?
SPEAKER_01I can't remember.
SPEAKER_00This is another god thing. We signed our agreement about three days uh at the exact peak of the NASDAQ.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And and so it turned out to be quite beneficial financially. Uh the timing. Of course, we knew we were geniuses, right? Of course, of course. Right. God just led us uh simple people into a very uh good journey, exciting journey.
SPEAKER_01Wow, praise God for that that timing. So, what would you say is your favorite Bible verse or passage related to business and entrepreneurship?
SPEAKER_00Well, we founded the business on the first business on uh Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, which is pretty well-known passage, but it is a formula if you want to call it that. Trust in the Lord. That's that's step one. Get this foundation right about believing in God. Uh and then um trust in the Lord with all of your heart, um, allow him to lead you. And you know, you acknowledge him and he leads you. And that's sort of what that passage tells us. And so we that led to um a decision on our part that they acknowledge him in all your ways. That's part of Proverbs 3, 5 and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will direct your paths. We thought, what how can we acknowledge God in all our ways? So we actually named our first business TLB, and we just put made initials so people would ask us, and it stands for the Lord's business. And so that was just some simple way. We didn't want to shout it or anything like that, but we did want to be in a position if somebody said, Well, what's TLB stand for? We could explain it. And uh so that that really uh the trust, trust in the Lord is the hard part.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I mean, that is such a powerful verse. Uh, acknowledge him in all your ways. Uh because it's it's it's hard for a lot of us to make that make that connection because you know I can think about how God wants me to be kind and God wants me to take care of the poor, and God wants me to uh do the things that we the examples that we hear more more commonly from the pulpit. But what does that look like in marketing? What does that look like in accounting and HR and risk management and all of these all of these things? And that's what you're doing. You're helping companies to acknowledge him in all of the aspects of their business, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that it's the all your ways. I was listening to one of your podcasts with uh Amy Sedrone from Polish, and and she made that uh comment about it's the little, little things where people see faith. I remember one time we had a big client and a deadline due, and we were in the software business, and notoriously things go wrong in software back then, and we missed our deadline and put the whole project in jeopardy. And I was there with the team in the evening trying to get things ironed out, and and I I just tried to convey calmness and I wasn't angry or anything, and somebody came up to me afterwards, said, just thank you. Thank you for being calm in the midst of this because somebody else could have been screaming. I didn't even know I was doing it, you know. I there was not a covert or an oh overt decision, okay, I gotta act. It's just God in you, and it just comes out in all your interactions. And um, so that's it's the little things that make the difference. I I read a book one time, a guy was on a journey trying to figure out what he became a Christian, he became very loud in his sharing his faith, and and then by the time he matured, he realized that being a Christian in business meant paying his bills on time. Wow, you know, he he went from shouting about no Jesus to oh, maybe I should pay my bills on time.
SPEAKER_01Yes, you know, and the and the Bible has quite a bit to say, uh even about that specific issue and withholding pay from the laborers. I mean, God takes this very seriously. Yeah, absolutely. And so you were you were at peace in the midst of chaos, and and but you've you've kind of taken it a step further, and now you you're teaching that chaos is not just our enemy, it's our purpose. Uh, what do you mean by that?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I I'm on a journey like everyone else. I've been a believer now for more than 40 years. And um I spent a lot of my career trying to understand how businesses work and provide systems and processes so that they could just run the business well, set good goals, give clear direction, communicate well. And more recently, in the last couple of years, God has been laying on my heart that um we need businesses to be salt and light. We need, you know, our our in the culture in the United States, things are kind of getting pretty bad with suicide rates with kids and drug rates. And so that the what began to emerge in me was this take take the expertise you have in in process and in business best practices and put together best practices for kingdom building. And and there are some absolutely stunning stories. I I've spent the last year and a half meeting business leaders who have done this. And you know, I uh the people I talk to that are Christians in business, one there's kind of a couple of couple of questions in their mind. First of all, can I do this? I mean, is it possible to integrate faith and business successfully in today's litigious society and all that kind of stuff? So there's that, can I? And then there's okay, if I wanted to, how do I get my team on board when they don't, they're not all Christians? And so there's uh two big questions that get in the way. And now that I've studied and talked to so many business leaders, you just realize absolutely you can do it. And it's stunning the results these companies get. Um, I'll give you one example. I I don't know if you've ever heard of Coke Consolidated. It's sure, yeah, their success story is stunning with um their CEO. You read his biography, and and um Frank Harrison III, and when he was about late 30s, he took over as CEO, he started asking this question. He said, I've been trained as an MBA, I know how to run business, and and um I'm taking over as the CEO of Co-Consolidated, but I'm a believer and I want the same accountability, transparency for my faith that I did in that the business world had. It's really a profound him set him sitting there thinking, how do I live my life with integrity to my faith? And so he starts praying to figure out how to do this. Co-consolidated the time, I can't remember, it was probably a billion or $800 million company, something like that. Now they're an $8 billion company with 18,000 employees, and they had 600 salvations last year in their company. Wow, and uh they could you there's case after case. I took uh David Green with Hobby Lobby. You know, people think of it as a big business. It's what, I don't know, six or seven billion, but it started in the kitchen paying his kids eight cents a frame to to put together picture frames. Yeah, and uh so it got me excited. It got me excited about hey, you can build a great business and can do kingdom building at the same time. You don't have to compromise, you can do it all. And so that's what I feel like, you know, I'm kind of late in life career-wise, but I feel like the best is ahead here. I think God's really leading into me something exciting.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, and you really view bringing order out of chaos as the leader's purpose, right? That's yeah, kind of the defin, even the definition of leadership, you say.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I'm a big, I'm a big believer that the Bible tells us how the world works. And um, it's really interesting when when you look in Genesis chapter one, it says we're created in God's image and um we're supposed to have dominion, which is bring order out of chaos. Um, but it it says we're we we're created in his image, and if you go back to the what what do we know about God in chapter one? Well, verse one says, uh, in the beginning he created the heavens and earth, and they were void and without form. And so what's interesting is God says, You are like me. And by the way, I started with chaos. He he takes the trouble to say the first thing he created was not light, the first thing he created was chaos. And then he starts transforming that chaos one step at a time. The sea from the land, the dark from the light, brings life, and so our calling in life um is to bring order out of chaos. And we think of it as an enemy, but it's not. And the raw material chaos is the raw material from which we apply purpose. So that's my and that applies to business, it applies to homes, it applies to churches. All the time we're bringing order out, even cooking a meal is God's plan, right? You take you ever see your grandma on a thousand ingredients, and she takes all these things and somehow puts them together. This feast is created. That's bringing order out of chaos.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I think the Hebrew is tohu v ohu. Um yeah, that's I think that is the right um formless and void. And and that's that's the way the marketplace is, you know. Think about uh just areas where there are opportunities for innovation. Um, there's it's it's not even, I mean, God has already made everything. There's nothing new under the sun, but things are just in disarray, especially since sin entered the picture, right? And so our role as business people is to bring order out of the chaos, out of the um just the disarray of God's that process doesn't start until you begin to form purpose.
SPEAKER_00Because once you have purpose, then you say, Oh, I need a two by four, or I need a two by six, or I need a piece of plywood. In in a family situation, you got kids, they're chaotic, and uh what do I need to raise them? I need some training, I need some discipline, I need whatever. So, yeah, it's it makes it life exciting.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And how have you seen this uh uh play out in some either your own company or in companies that you've consulted with where there really was chaos, but the leader stepped up and was able to bring order to that chaos?
SPEAKER_02Well, I uh kind of I'll tell I'll tell you um a couple of different stories.
SPEAKER_00One one in in my own career, I um I'm a I'm I'm an engineer and I like building things, and as CEO, I drove our company to build things. And in the in uh in the late 80s, we were building a next generation product. We've and it was a failed product, it wasn't architected right, it was the wrong business objective, and I almost bankrupt the company um pursuing that. Now, what has this got to do with chaos? Well, I had a clear purpose, but it was a wrong purpose, and that's dangerous, you know, because I'm I'm purpose-driven. So once I get a purpose in my mind, I pursue it and pursue it and pursue it. And I pers I remember one February I was praying like crazy, God, we need more revenue. Grow our business so I can keep pursuing this purpose. And you know what happened that month, our sales dropped unexpectedly about 20-25%. But what got the gift God gave me in that was He forced me to let go of my purpose. My purpose was wrong, and I could not admit it. And so what happened was because the drop was so big, we finally had to stop that project. I had to, and it resulted in me laying off people, friends, cut, we laid off almost half our workforce. It was it was chaos. Back back to your question. It was internal chaos. I did this, I caused this, it was chaos for our employees. And then God renewed our purpose. He he began to say that was wrong. Here's the direction. And um, that's painful, by the way, to get redirected on something you think is right, to let go of it and reform, that's come bringing order out of chaos. And what was so interesting was we had to be broken to be open to getting on the right track. And when we got on the right track, believe it or not, we we grew 600% in the next five years.
SPEAKER_02Wow.
SPEAKER_00And you know, I look back at that, back to chaos. If if you don't have purpose that is aligned with God's, you can't make up for it with more money, more people, more whatever. If you're not aligned with what God's trying to do, in the end, it's just not gonna work. And yeah, and so that's uh a personal story. Yeah, I mean, this is a story.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm sorry, I was just gonna say this is really uh a spiritual gift we're talking about. I mean, uh whether you call it leadership, whether you call it administration, I think there's a a distinction between those two in the in the Bible, uh, but those are both gifts that are expressly mentioned. And and so it where do we use those gifts? Primarily in the workplace. I mean, I think one of the the greatest heresies in the church today is well, one, that there are no more gifts, that they ceased with the apostles, and and two, that if there are, they're just for a in the congregational setting. And uh that's not that's not the case at all. I mean, the gifts are uh have been distributed for the uh uh for the fulfill for the uh building up of the church and carrying out of the mission of the church. And primarily that is done in the marketplace because that's where we spend most of our waking hours, right?
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Couldn't couldn't be farther true. Half half our waking hours at least, and probably more than half if we counted our thoughts.
SPEAKER_01Yes. Yeah, that's a good point. We're thinking about it a lot. That's right. Well, you said you had another story to share as well.
SPEAKER_00Yes, we had uh in the COVID uh situation, we have a healthcare client in sh in sh in south side of Chicago and serves under underserved population. And um I we would go into those kinds of our clients and try to help them craft a longer-term strategy and and balance day-to-day operations with making changes to get where they wanted to go long term. It's always a constant battle, short-term versus long-term. And I remember one particular um session we had with a group of um medical leaders, and I asked them what's the most important thing to do in the next 90 days? And remember their load went up, I don't know, 500% with COVID vaccinations. And I mean, they just got inundated. And by the way, here's how why good systems are important. They had a phone system that was designed to handle certain capacity. Well, when it goes up fivefold, it's not designed to handle it. And what happens when people would call in and the call couldn't be answered? They'd call in again. So not only do you have a five-fold increase in demand, you've got a tenfold increase because the calls weren't answered in the first place. You you see what I'm getting at, and that creates chaos. Well, these uh leaders, the number one thing they voted on, we have a little exercise called the Gordian exercise for people to privately vote on brainstorming so that we get their best thinking. And their number one priority for the next quarter was to have time to think. They were so overwhelmed that their leader needed to recognize I've got to stop this franticness and give these people time to think so they can lead. So that's an example of you you think you're too busy driving to get gas. You know, that was that was uh Stephen Covey's quote. And a leader of those leaders needs to help them. Yeah, yeah. The leader of those leaders needs to say, okay, we're going to take this hour, I don't care how bad it is outside, and stop, and you take some quiet time, shut the door, and have that time to think.
SPEAKER_01Yes, absolutely. We have to have margin in our lives, in our businesses to think. That's so powerful. And things get so chaotic if we don't take that take that time. Gary, what's one action that you would want people to take as a result of what they've heard today?
SPEAKER_00Well, I mean, this is a selfish um, maybe, maybe it appears to be selfish.
SPEAKER_01Besides buy the book. We definitely want them to go buy the book, built the book.
SPEAKER_00Well, but yeah, we've got a webinar that we're introducing now, and it's not a sales pitch. It's just to get in the head of a of a Christian leader to start them thinking about I could go down a different path. I really can do this. And I'm at this stage of my life, I'm not here to make more money, I'm here to make more difference. And so that's an example. Go to our website and look for resources and take that journey that um Frank Harrison and I mentioned at Coke Consolidated. I'd like to find the next hundred or five hundred Frank Harrisons at the beginning of the journey and accelerate their progress, that they can do it. Here are the techniques for doing it, here's the strategies for doing it. So that that would be something I'd leave people with. It's all that stuff's on our website, leadfirst.ai.
SPEAKER_01Leadfirst.ai, and people can watch a webinar, correct? That's gonna be a good one.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we're the first one's November 1st.
SPEAKER_01November 1st, they need to register for that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's it's on the set website to register. You probably won't publish this until then, but um, but we'll record it and we'll do more of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. All right. Fantastic. Well, leadfirst.ai and Gary Harpst, H A R P S T dot com are the website. The book is built to beat chaos. Um, Gary, this has been phenomenal. Thank you for taking the time to help our listeners grow today.
SPEAKER_00Uh, it's mutual, Darren. You're doing really what's more powerful than getting ideas out, you know.
SPEAKER_01That's right. That's right. Nothing can stop an idea whose time has come. I can't remember who said that, but it's a great quote.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and so you're a con you're a conduit. You get you give people like me a platform. So thank you for doing that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, sir. It's been a pleasure. We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you'd leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and Business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HCU's Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all issues of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening, and remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.