Welcome to the Christianity and Business Podcast with host Darren Sheer, an initiative of the RGW Denham College of Business at Houston Baptist University. This is the show that helps Christian business leaders to integrate the local values into business. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business and sign up to receive free access to all features of the Christian Business Review Journal by visiting our website at ChristianityInbusiness.com.
SPEAKER_02On this episode, we're joined by Art Barter. Art rebuilt the culture of Daytron World Communications. He took Daytron's traditional power led model and turned it upside down through the implementation of servant leadership. As a result, the small international radio manufacturer grew from a $10 million company to a $200 million company in just six years. His experience with Daytron's transformation is chronicled in the book The Art of Servant Leadership. Art founded the Servant Leadership Institute as a vehicle to share his knowledge and teach others how to inspire and equip those they influence. Art, thanks for joining us. Absolutely. So we want to hear more about this transformation through, and you attribute it to this the way that you implemented this servant leadership model and mindset. And you really point out in your book that this is not just a you know a set of tactics, but it truly is a mindset. How do you know for sure that servant leadership made the difference? I mean, you went from 10 million to 200 million in six years. I mean, we're that's just talking about the financial impact. How do you know for sure servant leadership made the difference and not something else? Maybe it was somebody might think, well, it was just timing, or you know, the company was just ripe for growth. How do you know that it was servant leadership that made the difference?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, the feedback for us to let us know that our culture is right uh really ends up with our customers. And uh two years ago, I was approached by a retired general that we had served in Jordan. Um, and they were celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the Great Arab Revolt in their country, and they generated 10 uh 100 coins um commemorating that. And he says, I want you, Art, and your team at Daytron, to have one of these coins. And we were at a large trade show, and he put the coin in my hand and grabbed my hand to shake it and held on to it. He says, Art, I want you to know that you and your company have served the country of Jordan more from your heart than any other company we've ever done business with.
SPEAKER_02Oh wow.
SPEAKER_01Now, when you serve from the heart and do it for the right reasons, and I'm a person of faith, I believe in God. And what Lori and I, my wife, um, believed is God put us in place to buy this company. He provided all the resources to make it happen, and we decided that we were going to run it under biblical principles. Now, we're a multicultural company, I have all kinds of faith in my company. I don't require people to be Christians to work at Daytron. The only thing I require is you have to have a heart to help people. And the reason we require that is that's what our purpose is to positively impact the lives of others today and in the future. And, you know, you think about how Jesus walked and how he impacted people, he positively impacted the people he came across. He met people where they are and helped them improve from where they were. They didn't say, you know, come to me and I'll make you 15, 20 times better. He went and met them where they are. And, you know, the woman at the well is a great example, um, where two distinct different cultures come together at the well, a man goes to a woman, and they start talking about things in general. And, you know, we we need to meet people where they are. Um and the one thing that my leadership team had to had to know was why I was doing what I was doing. And when I was honest with them and told them, hey, I'm a person of faith, I believe in God. Um, we put in God we trust on the wall, and but it was missing something. And after a couple of years, we said, you know, we have to add a second line because we trust God, but He wants us to invest in people, and so we trust in God, but we invest in helping people. Um and you know, we looked at biblical um areas, and the big area that we came to was we had to tithe. Um, and so we decided that we were gonna set aside 10% of our operating profit every quarter. Now you had to have profit to do that. You can't do 10% of revenue, you gotta you know, create some some uh harvest. And um so we decided to create the Dirt Batron Charitable Fund. Now, what we didn't feel comfortable with was that 10% going to our home church, all right, because we weren't the ones that helped create all that profit, the whole team did. And so 10% of the 10% went to our home church, the other 90% was given away by the employees to nonprofits that were in good standing with the IRS. And we did that for two reasons. We wanted to be obedient to God and tithe 10%. And the second reason is if we're going to positively impact the lives of others, we have to give our employees a vehicle to go live that purpose. And so if you think about it, they're delivering great products to countries all over the world, but they're also able to give those profits back to nonprofits that have touched their heart, whether it's cancer, uh MS, uh, epilepsy, um uh it could be a number of things. We've we've what and what's amazing to me is what's on the heart of our multicultural employees is we've helped out nonprofits all over the world. Um, put up buildings in Africa, orphanages in Vietnam. Um we do a lot of work here in the United States. Um, we do some of it directly with churches, some of it directly with nonprofits, uh, but it's all about helping people. And so we believe that we had to give our employees a vehicle to go live that purpose. And so we don't take grant requests from outside the company, we let our employees give that money away. And you know, God works in mysterious ways. And so far, uh we're 15 years into it. We bought a note for yeah, 15 years into it. Um, we've given away almost 16 million dollars. Um and we do it quietly. We have a we have a policy that uh, you know, the Bible says don't let the left hand know what the right hand's doing, and don't boast about your your good actions. And so we don't seek recognition. You'll never see us take a check and give it to a charity organization and have our picture in a paper. We don't believe in that. Um, but if a company does give us a plaque or something, we put it on the wall within our company, and that's our reminder of why we do what we do and the impact we have in the world. And so um that's how we know that this is right. Number one, it's God led, and we're we're doing it with godly principles. Um, but the reaction of the people we serve when they come to us and tell us that we've served them from their heart more than any other any other company they've done business with, I have a customer for life. I have a customer for life. Yeah, and there aren't a lot of businesses that can say they have a customer for life because you serve them from your heart. And so we do it for the right reason, but we also our customers tell us. Um, and they tell us a lot of times their checkbook. Um sometimes we well, when we started in 2004, bought it in 2005, we started our business plan, and my team says, Art, how much do you want to grow? And I said, I'm never gonna tell you that. They said, Well, you have to tell us how much you're gonna grow so we can determine how much we're gonna spend. And I said, Why don't you take that effort and go serve the customer and let the customer decide with their checkbook how fast we're gonna grow? Right? Because if you do your job right, the customer's gonna come back to you.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And so that's the approach we took.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so servant leadership is uh it's it's been an in-vogue concept uh you know when we talk about company culture and not kind of this this top-down, as you said, when you came into Daytron and bought it at $10 million in revenue, it was a power-led model. And and so your your customers are all over the world. Do you find that this is uh a foreign concept for a lot of your and and to clarify for our listeners who might not be familiar with Daytron, so Daytron sells communications equipment, 90% of their customers are military uh in uh in foreign countries outside of the United States. Uh, do you do you find that this is kind of a radical concept that makes it so like thinking about the uh uh this leader in Jordan, that it was just so he just never seen anything like that. Um, how how radical is this around the world?
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, it's not it's not that radical. Um and what I try to get leaders to understand, especially if you're Christian, is you know, everybody wants to live the Great Commission, right? And I go, okay, you can do that, but you're leading a company. And what I truly believe, and I heard this from John Ortberg um many years ago, he says, you know, people get to heaven through Jesus Christ. Uh they get to the kingdom. The kingdom comes to earth through our behaviors, through our behaviors, not by what we say, but what we do. And so you can believe, you can behave in a biblical way in areas like the Middle East, because you can treat anybody from any religion with dignity and respect. And that's really what it's all about, is we serve first. Um, like we're taught, you know, Jesus was the greatest servant leader there was. And we don't have boundaries except where we can't do business, you know, in some of the countries the U.S. doesn't have relationships with or has restrictions on. Um, but we get the opportunity to serve people from the heart. And you know what? If they ask me where it comes from, I'll share my beliefs with them. Um, but a lot of people don't ask me why I do what I do. They come to the company, they see why I do what I do, because we're we're a servant-led company, we don't hide it. And but we accept all people. Um, you know, God tells us not to be the judge. Um, he says we're not the judge. And that's the biggest challenge we have, I think, in with Christian leaders is you know, can we serve people that we don't have the same ideas or the same ideology about? Can we serve them the same way that we have similar thoughts about? And and you know, I've I've recently started, this was about two years ago, came up and said, listen, we need to serve the life and not the ideology. We need to serve the life. I don't care what the life says they are, it doesn't matter to me. If if that life needs help, uh, I don't think Jesus went around and said, I'm not gonna help this person because I don't like what they're wearing, yeah, or what they look like, or they got tattoos all. He serves the life, not the idea. And I think that's the biggest challenge for us is we want to be be the judge of people and not um do what he asked us to do, not to judge people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Um when you first came into and and bought Daytron, did you keep the the employee, any of the employees that were there at the time? Um, did they kind of go with you on this journey, or did a lot of them kind of drop off? And and if so, and if so, what were some of the most noticeable differences? Is there tell me about a person who you saw transform through this process?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know, I I we have multiple people that went through the process. Some are no longer with us. Uh, some chose to leave because they didn't believe in the culture. Um, but I will tell you, Darren, we trained everyone in the company with the same material. So everybody was trained with servant leadership. And what that does is if you don't believe that's the right culture for the company in doing business, guess what? You're surrounded by people who do. And so you're gonna end up not being happy at the company. So you're gonna make a decision, either change and transform and start that process, or you're gonna go somewhere else where you're accepted. Now, here's the interesting thing about servant leadership the relationship with that life doesn't change because the employment relationship has changed. All right. When someone decides to leave me or I have to ask them to leave, I still trust them. I trusted them yesterday, and if I can't keep them employed, I'm gonna not trust them. Well, no, I trust everybody. Um and so we go out of our way to help them find a place that will accept them. We go out of our way to make sure they have medical insurance coverage. Um, you know, we we believe in helping people find the right place for them. And we tell people if you're not into servant leadership, that's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person, it just makes you a different person. And that's okay. It is okay not to believe in servant leadership. Now we recommend that you go find a company that will you know believe the same thing you believe because you'll be a lot happier there. And my job is to help you be happy, right? Um, and then there's some people, Darren, it doesn't matter what you do to them, they're never gonna be happy. They have so many files from past experiences and been hurt so many times. They are not gonna be happy campers.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um, and I like what Ken Blanchard says about those people. He says, share them with your competition. Let them go to work your competition, right? Um but but the transformation, you know, we see it in in how people act, but I think for our employees, it was the stories that people brought home from home, brought to work from home. People with teenagers changed their relationship with their teenagers, teenagers, me included. Um people changed their relationship with their spouse or their significant other.
SPEAKER_02Is there a story that comes to mind?
SPEAKER_01Um I had a well, my my story is my daughter, when she started to drive, was a demolition derby queen in San Diego County. She crashed every car we gave her. And, you know, I was the father that says, you know, when are you gonna when are you gonna start acting like an adult? When are you gonna start doing this? When are you gonna start doing this? And what I had to come to realize is I needed to love her unconditionally, just like Jesus loved me. And so she came home one night after wrecking a car, and I looked at her and I said, I her name is Jennifer. I said, Jennifer, listen, there isn't anything you can do that will change how much I love you. It doesn't matter how many cars you wreck, I'm still gonna love you the same amount. I said, Go to bed, get some sleep, we'll work on this in the morning. And at that moment, it changed my relationship with my daughter because I told her I'm gonna unconditionally love her the same every day. Now, the next morning I I changed what I told her. And the one thing I changed was I do care how many cars you wreck. I really need you to stop wrecking cars, but you know what? I'm gonna love you regardless of what you do. Um and you know, that was my own transformation that I went through. I saw a change with my kids. Uh, I've seen parents change their relationships with their kids, and it takes a while for the kids to trust adults, right? I mean, they're they just don't trust their parents. And so when parents start acting differently, it takes them a while to go, well, maybe dad really wants to help me uh instead of what does dad want from me now.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_02You mentioned uh a bit ago uh about how even when somebody has to leave the company by you have to force them out or whatever, that you still trust that person. And and I know people, some people are listening to that, and uh those natural instincts of, well, you're gonna trust somebody that did you wrong, you're gonna trust somebody that that uh didn't live up to their end of the the agreement in the in the employment contract. Um, but they they forget that the Bible says in First Corinthians 13 that love always trusts.
SPEAKER_01Yep.
SPEAKER_02And and I never I rarely hear anybody talking about trusting people. I mean, it's like I'll trust you until you give me a reason not to. You know, that's that's typically so I wonder how much of this servant leadership mindset hinges on this concept of of trust.
SPEAKER_01Well, we have we have nine behaviors that we focused on that worked really well within our organization. And we didn't go into servant leadership for those nine behaviors, they were the behaviors that we saw the best transformation in the people we trained. And the second, you know, first one is serve serve first. You have to decide to serve. And I believe that's a that can be a learned uh behavior in serving. I don't think it has to be a natural feeling. I think you can be taught that. But the second one behavior after that, and these you all have to build on top of each other, is build trust. Because you can't do anything in adding value, um, creating relationships, having courageous conversations. You can't do anything with anybody unless they trust you. So, first you got to decide to serve people, and the second thing you have to do is you have to build trust for them.
SPEAKER_02Um and but I'm specifically talking about you as the leader trusting your people.
SPEAKER_01Right. So here's here's how I look at it. Uh, when they come to Daytron and they work in servant leadership, we plant the seed. And you have a choice as a leader when you have to let that person go, that life go. Are you going to kill that seed that you planted? Or are you or are you going to water it? And my belief is our job is to continue to water that seed as long as we have interface with the life, even after they leave us and complain about us. They didn't like this, they didn't like this. Our job is to water that seed because I believe somewhere down the road, they're going to realize and that seed's going to start to grow. Uh, and I've had employees who we had to fire and let go, um, who come back to me and six months, 12 months, 18 months later, and said, Art, I really want to thank you for what you taught me. I realize now what you're trying to teach me. And not everybody's ready for servant leadership. Not everybody's ready for it. And it may be another 10, 15 years before they open up their mind and say, you know what, I think, I think that guy, Art, was right. Or maybe talk to you, Darren, and they said, I think Darren's right. I think I do need to be a different type of leader because I'm not happy in what I'm doing. I'm just not happy. So we plant the seed, and then you have an opportunity when you have to break that relationship. Do you continue to water the seed or are you going to stomp it out? And if you stomp it out, I don't think that's biblical. I think you have to continue to water that seed as long as you can and then pass it on to someone else. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. But but how can you say you trust one of your people? Let's say that it's one of your middle managers. Yeah. And you know, just time and time again, they they they just they couldn't live up to the expectations, and yet you say you still trust them. What do you mean? What where do you draw the line with that trust? Or do you?
SPEAKER_01I don't. Um, and a great example is, you know, companies will say, Okay, I've got to let you go. And while they're having that discussion with the employee, they're shutting off their access to email, they're shutting off their access to the computer, they're gonna have HR walk them out and go, Hey, I, you know, 20 minutes are out the door. Um and I don't believe that if Jesus had to let someone go, that he'd walk them out the door in 20 minutes. You know, I think he'd let them have that last day. If someone's working your company for 10 years and you got to let them go, they've worked with people for 10 years. Let them say goodbye to them. Let them send some emails. Let them finish if they want to finish some tasks, let them finish some tasks. But don't shut them off from everything because, hey, listen, you can really impact that life in that day or half a day. And you can impact it in a positive way. And I will tell you, you know, we've had to have some reductions in business. And we started doing them differently. We let people know in the morning and we say, listen, finish out your day, go back to your desk. We're not going to escape you out. Get your you want to finish the day, you stay here and hang out with people that you worked with. You leave when you want to leave. And not only does it impact the people that you're impacting their employment with, it impacts the people who stay because they saw that you treated them right instead of treating them like a box that you gotta take out back and throw it in the trash. Um so I think it's really important that that people realize that we plant seeds in people, and there are people who like us and like what we do, and there's people who don't like us and don't like what we do.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_01And if we're true servant leaders, we treat those two lives the same.
SPEAKER_02I just think that that there's no coincidence that you mentioned that that part about trusting people, uh, because it that's what kind of props up these power-centric leadership models is that that suspicion of people and just not not truly being able to um to release the task to them, uh to truly uh release the mission to that person because there's this constant suspicion of are the are they gonna screw it up and and just living in that constant fear of uh of of what's gonna happen. But just one of the best ways that we can serve our people is to to trust them, you know. Like when you send over, when you give a task, like like the just that constant, a lot of it is our own insecurity of making sure that it has to be done exactly our way. Right. And like uh General Patton said something along the lines of um never tell people uh what how to do something, um, let them surprise you with their ingenuity. Um I'm I'm butchering the quote, but it it's basically that concept of trusting people. I mean, it's hard to serve, truly serve people if you're suspicious of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you know what I what I try and get leaders to understand, you inspire people with great purpose, a mission, a set of values that you live. It's just not hanging on a wall, but you actually live them through your behaviors. And then you equip them to do the job. You train them, you give them the tools, you help them learn, you help them transform. And then our job as leaders is to get the heck out of the way. You've you've given them a great purpose, you've given them all the tools they need to do their job. You wouldn't have hired them if they weren't competent, right? So, hey, you've got the right person. Now it's time for you to get out of the way. And, you know, I hold the title of CEO, and I'll tell you, Darren, there are people in leadership uh within my company when we started. It didn't matter how I how I talked, if tried to be a friend, tried, I was still the CEO, and those people weren't going to say a word about solving a problem because they weren't gonna be honest and open and put it on the table while I was in the room. And so what I learned is when my leadership team started to shut down, it was time for me to go to the go take a phone call, go do something and stay out of there for the next hour or two and let them solve the problem without me in the room. And that's one of the best things leaders can do is trust your people to go find the solution to the problem because they're the ones that do the work. And in manufacturing, when we have a problem in manufacturing product, I go, why are all you leaders in the conference room? You guys need to be down talking to the people who are doing the work. And I'll grab a coat and go down and say, okay, here's the problem we're having. Tell me what you know about the difficulty in building this product. Go talk to the people who do the work and let them come up with a solution.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01If we've done our jobs as servant leaders, we don't have any problems stepping away.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But if we haven't, and our motives aren't pure, guess what? We want to stay in and stay in control.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And, you know, that's one of the best things we can measure ourselves on is how many meetings do we feel we have to be in because our leaders aren't smart smart enough to solve the problems.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Now you're a power leader. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I love, I love the verse, you know, when when John the Baptist said, He must increase, I must decrease. I mean, that's really what this what you're talking about. Is, I mean, if you believe that if if Jesus is your Lord and Savior, that's that's our calling is to decrease. So he can increase. And how does he increase? He increases through other people. Right. And he can begin to transform their lives. And, you know, that's, I think ultimately become a part of the body of Christ. And and that's what that's what Jesus looks like. So if you can, because I think for some people, it this sounds like abdicating your responsibility as a leader by giving somebody a task and not staying over their shoulder uh the whole time while they're doing it with that that constant suspicion, you know, and you might even justify it and say, Oh, let's just, you know, we got to be good stewards and make sure they're not gonna screw it up. It's like, well, why did you hire them in the first place?
SPEAKER_01Well, be a good steward in your training.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_01If you haven't spent any money on training, you know, that's the first thing that usually gets cut when you go to budget reviews. Why? Well, you cut out the business lunches and put the money towards training your employees, you're gonna get a better return on that, right? And so, um, you know, we're not you're you're better stewards of the resources you have, which includes people. And if you equip them with the right training and tools, then what do you have to be afraid of?
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Right? And if you haven't done that, you haven't inspired them, you haven't equipped them, you already know what the results are, and you're gonna control it and you're gonna be a power-led company because people are gonna get to the point where they only do what they're told to do. And when that happens, the only person a leader has to look at it in the mirror is themselves because they're the ones that created that culture.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Right. I mean, and that's it's I I must increase, he must decrease, you know. I must increase and and get more power and feel like I'm really controlling everything. And that's the the the inverted look at that is he must increase. You we as leaders must decrease, and that's what servant leadership is all about. Art, what's the best place for people to learn more about you?
SPEAKER_01Uh, you can Google my name, Art Barter. Uh you can Google the Servant Leadership Institute, and you'll find all kinds of resources. I've got books on Amazon. Um, you can Google Daytron World Communications to see what we do in our in our product business. But the servantleadership institute.com is the best place. Um, or just Google my name and yeah, uh you'll you'll find all kinds of resources on us. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Excellent. Servantleadershipinstitute.com. Everybody go check that out. Ars we wrap it up here. What would be your parting piece of guidance for our listeners?
SPEAKER_01Well, I I tell you what, for the Christian leaders out there, um at all, well, two things I'll leave them with. You got to read Romans 13 about biblical authority, and that's one of the most misunderstood things. You know, our job is to challenge authority. It is to a point. But when God appoints a leader in the organization, that leader, when they make a decision, our job now as Christian leaders is to support that decision, not go chatter behind everybody's back to tell people how dumb the leader is, right? And that was a tough lesson for me to learn. But here's the check on your character. When you learn that you can disagree with a leader, but once they make a decision, you can still help them achieve that decision. Now, what God says is your character is right, so He now can give you more assets to manage. And people have a hard time understanding that. You have to respect the authority that God puts you under, and all authority comes from God. That's really tough for people to think, think about.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01But the other thing is people say, you know, my CEO or my VP doesn't believe in servant leadership. You know, so I can't start it. And I say, Well, why don't you start with yourself? And they say, Well, how do I do that? I said, You don't need permission from anyone, including your CEO, your VP, your direct boss, to treat people with dignity and respect.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's really good.
SPEAKER_01Why don't you treat someone with dignity or start with yourself? And you don't need permission from anybody to do that except for yourself. Right? So start it, start it with you and then watch it grow. And I've seen that happen over and over again where it starts in a small group of employees, and before you knew it, a division has taken it on. Our largest um customer is now training in 48 different states that uses some of our curriculum. They put it with theirs, but it started in a small division uh with a small group of people. And guess what? They became disciples and they spread it through their entire corporation. And so we can't go touch everybody. What did Jesus do? He concentrated on 13. Yeah, right. Now, some of them were bad apples, but concentrate on those and then inspire and equip them to go take the message and you'll influence a lot more people that way. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Yeah. It starts with us. It starts with us. Such great advice and wisdom. Art, thank you so much for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today. May God continue to bless Daytron and your family and the Servant Leadership Institute and all of those that you continue to equip for the ministry.
SPEAKER_01Well, thank you. And and keep letting God lead you guys because you are doing his work. And um so we got got you guys covered in prayer as well. So keep up the great work.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, sir.
SPEAKER_00We hope you've enjoyed this episode. And if so, we would greatly appreciate it if you would leave us a quick rating and review for the Christianity and business podcast on iTunes. You can get more information about HBU Center for Christianity and Business at Christianityandbusiness.com. Thanks for listening. And remember to keep integrating biblical values into your business.