Built to Beat Chaos

Gary Harpst co-founded the ERP solution Solomon Software, which was ultimately sold to Great Plains. CFO Bookshelf enjoys Gary’s past books, including Six Disciplines for Excellence and Six Disciplines Revolution. Gary’s newest book has been 40 years in the making. The title is Built to Beat Chaos: Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others. While this is Gary’s message and stories, this provocative leadership book is part of Drucker, C.S. Lewis, Maxwell, and Christensen.

Interview Highlights

• Addressing the potential elephant in the room
• Gary’s definition of chaos
• Revisiting the Great Plains story
• Why the human architecture framework is a leadership starting point
• A leader’s first and second responsibility
• Why defining what is good goes far beyond a core values exercise
• The Weight Watchers four-part behavioral change model
• Just pick a system, any system, and the research from 1200 companies
• Getting the 85% involved and the reason one hour inspires them
• The reason Mark is impressed with the 100-point exercise
• The Harold Morgan story and the events leading up to it
• The who, when, where, and how of mentoring and why the best mentors have been mentored themselves
• Suggestions for faith-based owners on being impactful in the workplace

Mark’s Selected Highlights

After a painful layoff of half of Solomon’s workforce …

We realized we couldn’t have it both ways. If we wanted the upside of building a business and providing emloyment, we had to take the downside risk of making mistakes. These kinds of trials by fire force digging deeper about what you believe which in turn guides your decisons.

From raw material to a finished good …

Forging steel starts with iron ore, which is filled with impurities. That ore is heated to high termperatures to melt off impurities. God created chaos … to burn off the impurities of false hopes and beliefs. The result is a character of steel which is much more resilient than the iron ore it came from.

The three categories of chaos:

• Natural – includes acts of nature outside our control
• Social – the unpredictable interactions among people
• Within – internal misalignment among our desires and actions

When a single person creates a single object, evaluation of good is clear. But when we create something complex wth varying opinions of purpose, determinng what is good is difficult. Think government.

Regarding systems …

Organizations need a standard way to define priorities and manage execution with habits that use less energy so that discretionary mental bandwidth focuses on the more important work of leading people.

A friend once told me, “People don’t want to work for a company that has a mission but for a company that is on a mission.”

On planning and looking ahead …

We recommend setting targets two years beyond the fiscal yeart that you are in. There can be a significant lead time between change and seeing the results. If you want specific results in two yers, people need to work into next year’s plan how that will happen.

On mentoring …

In the Bible, mentoring usually conveys the idea of training someone to the point of maturity where they can train someone else. In other words, you are not really a disciple until you have discipled someone else who has discipled someone. It is a high standard of mastery.

Impactful frameworks and analogies in the book:

1. The four-part human architecture
2. The Three Laws of Robotics
3. Monet’s 15 paintings and a rotten apple
4. the O Rings story
5. “There’s a pony in here somewhere”
6. The elements of the universe
7. Change management phase
8. The John Kotter quote on behavior, page 108
9. The Weight Watchers system for behavioral change
10. The TQM research study – brilliant!
11. The three leadership models (this was new to me)
12. Inspired to Work Here research
13. The Five Steps to Engagement
14. “I’ll send you a check later this week for $300,000”
15. Gordian™ Problem Solving
16. Gary’s book suggestions on page 269

Important Links

• Gary’s consulting firm, LeadFirst™
• LinkedIn profile
• Our first interview with Gary on strategy and execution