Meet
Gary Harpst
Gary has had the privilege of guiding hundreds of leaders to see clearly through the lens of biblical leadership principles, so they can become leaders that overcome chaos.
Meet
Gary Harpst
Gary has had the privilege of guiding hundreds of leaders to see clearly through the lens of biblical leadership principles, so they can become leaders that overcome chaos.
Teacher. Keynote Speaker. Thought-Leader.
Gary is a dynamic teacher and insightful keynote speaker who challenges and motivates his audiences. His presentations weave together biblical insights about how to face the chaos of everyday business life with timeless principles. And he does so with humor, wisdom, energy, and incisive anecdotes from his many years of business management experience. He’s conducted hundreds of presentations, keynote addresses and specialized webcasts on a variety of practical topics related to strategy and execution.
Gary’s also been recognized during the past several years as being one of the Top 100 of the nation’s top thought-leaders in management and leadership by Leadership Excellence magazine. Because of his expertise, Gary is also interviewed and quoted by national and local media for newspaper and magazine articles, as well as for podcasts, radio, and TV interviews.
BACKGROUND & EXPERIENCE
Following several years of working for the Ohio State University and Marathon Oil, Gary co-founded and became CEO of Solomon Software, originally named “TLB, Inc.” (The Lord’s Business) headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. Under Gary’s leadership from 1980 through 2000, Solomon Software grew to more than 400 employees, servicing over 40,000 clients worldwide, and was sold to Great Plains Software in 2000.
Microsoft acquired the combined Great Plains and Solomon organizations in 2001, and located a software development and support campus in Findlay, Ohio until 2004. When Microsoft consolidated their development locations, Gary founded a new organization with these resources and established Solomon Cloud Solutions, a software engineering service firm for Microsoft Independent Software Vendors (ISV) and Microsoft Business Solutions (MBS) Channel Partners. In 2001 Gary founded Six Disciplines (now LeadFirst.ai) to develop leadership systems to make leaders more effective.
As a Business Author
In 2004, Gary published “Six Disciplines for Excellence: Building Small Business That Learn, Lead and Last”, which became an award-winning step-by-step book for continual business performance improvement. The book details the Six Disciplines methodology, a holistic business-building process based on proven best-practices in strategy, planning, organizing, executing, innovating and organizational learning.
In 2008, Gary released his second book, “Six Disciplines Execution Revolution: Solving The One Business Problem That Makes Solving All Other Problems Easier.” It was a best seller on the NYT, WSJ, BusinessWeek lists.
In April 2023, Gary’s latest book “Built to Beat Chaos, Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others will be released. The message of this book is that leadership is the most challenging and important work for humanity to fulfill its purpose. It lays out a framework for what effective leaders need to know, do and be. The book is published by Wiley and will be available in all major bookstores.
Books
Six Disciplines Leadership Centers are dedicated to helping small businesses achieve and sustain success. Six Disciplines for Excellence provides six fundamental business principles that are specifically designed to help small businesses move beyond momentary success to attain enduring excellence. This book is not for those who are looking for a quick fix. Six Disciplines for Excellence is a long-term fitness program, not a fad diet.
THE NEW YORK TIMES AND WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER With all of the pressures successful business leaders have today, none is more urgent or challenging than learning the ability to execute strategy. While larger businesses have the luxury of budgets and resources to meet this challenge, it’s the small and midsized businesses that now have a tremendous opportunity to level the playing field, leapfrog the expensive, outdated approaches of the past, and attack the challenge of execution in a revolutionary way.
Over 47% of leaders say that chaos is pervasive in their organizations. Though disorder can feel overwhelming at times, human beings are actually designed to overcome and conquer chaos. An invaluable roadmap for board members, executives, managers, pastors, and other organizational leaders, Built to Beat Chaos is the straightforward, practical, and biblically grounded business manual that every leader should read.
Character Before Competency
Cultivating the character to overcome chaos begins in the mind. And that’s exactly where we do our work. If you want to lead consistently from a place of wisdom, perspective and freedom, let’s talk.
