Built to Beat Chaos by Gary Harpst

Q&A with Gary Harpst

Author of “Built to Beat Chaos: Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others”

Q: Who can benefit from this book?

A: The book is written for leaders, but I believe that every single person is a leader, either of themselves or others. The book is written for people who want to be clear about their purpose and figure out ways to pursue that purpose. In Genesis, God makes it clear that He has given us the ability to manage the earthly things He created, but we must multiply to do it. In other words, we can’t fulfill our purpose alone. If we want to have a family, we get married. If we want to build a company, we need other people to help us. So, we end up with a dual dynamic of leadership: leading myself--Do I know where I want to go? Do I have internal consistency about what I want to do? — and working together with other people. Ultimately, the book is about what you need to know and do and be to become an effective leader.

Q: What is your business background?

A: Following several years of working for the Ohio State University and Marathon Oil, I co-founded and became CEO of Solomon Software, originally named TLB, Inc. (The Lord’s Business) headquartered in Findlay, Ohio. We grew to more than 400 employees and $60 million in revenue, servicing over 40,000 clients worldwide, and then sold our company to Great Plains Software and that combined business was sold to Microsoft six months later. I later established Solomon Cloud Solutions, a technology consulting service firm for Microsoft Independent Software Vendors and Microsoft Business Solutions Channel Partners. Now, I assist businesses and organizations with implementing leadership development systems that will help them grow with a company called LeadFirst.ai.

Q: The book is called “Built to Beat Chaos.” What chaos are you referring to?

A: God’s first act was to create chaos. And then He began to transform that chaos, step by step into the planet where we live. After that, God created us in His image, not to be ruled by the chaos, but to overcome it. I identify three categories of chaos—natural, social and internal. Natural includes acts of nature outside our control. Social chaos is the unpredictable interactions among people and the chaos within is internal misalignment among our desires and actions. Chaos always exists, we cannot eliminate it. When you bring order to one level of chaos, you just create another level to be managed. The construction of the universe hints that the essence of leadership is knowing how to order and arrange the raw materials of chaos.

Q: How can we make our work become holy?

A: In scripture, when God refers to something as holy, it is always connected to the fulfilled purpose of God. Leaders, pastors, and others who are commissioned to help people form relationships and reach goals in an organization are doing holy work. It is difficult to keep people on the same page, but it is not meant to be easy— it is meant to be meaningful. Genesis says we were created to have dominion and rule over this chaos. That’s why we are here.

Q: What is the benefit of working for a business that follows a biblical framework?

A: Recent Gallup data shows us that 80% of Americans believe in God and 60% believe that the Bible came from God. If you work for a company and you know they base their structure on a biblical framework, even if you aren’t a believer, you still understand there is a set of values in place, and you have some idea of how they will make decisions. The alternative is to work for a company where you don’t know what their values are based on, and you will have to find out as you go. Ultimately, an organization that stresses purpose will always draw people. I think we’re seeing this clearly with the millennial generation and younger. They want to know why they are doing what they are doing, more than they care about how much money they make. And frankly, I don’t see any answers anywhere better than what the Bible teaches.

Q: Most of your time has been spent helping businesses create systems that control chaos. How can churches benefit from those same systems?

A: Churches have many similar alignment and management issues as any other organization. A good church is going to grow, and a church or organization will often outgrow its ability to execute its goals if it doesn’t develop its leaders. Our church started a Saturday night service for the purpose of reaching unbelievers and young people. After several years, they started to fellowship together and then got married to each other and then had kids. After that, they wanted other things added to their service like childcare and other programs that we had on Sundays. So, the original service that brought them together was successfully created for a specific purpose, but as time went on it morphed into something else. So as church elders and leaders, we must think systematically just as any organization does. God is a God of order, and churches need systems in place to manage things that will inevitably change over time.

Q: What instruction does the Bible offer on how leaders should treat employees?

A: Before we got married, my wife and I attended a marriage conference and the instructor said marriage is not a 50-50 proposition. It is 100-100. He said you treat your wife right because of your relationship with God not because of what she does for you. What bonds humans together is the way we treat each other, and God’s standard is that we treat people right, independently from how they treat us. Treating people right is really about agape love, and leaders need to have that internal foundation which really goes beyond feelings or emotions.

Q: What is the #1 barrier for organizations when they are struggling to get chaos under control?

A: Leaders often overestimate their desire to make changes. Just like we do when we make New Year’s resolutions, sometimes leaders don’t really want to pay the price. The Bible tells us to count the cost, and most of us simply don’t do that upfront. Accountability is also an important component to implementing and following through with the changes that need to be made.

Q: How can leaders reflect God’s character?

A: The Bible says we learn about God’s character by looking at creation. The amazing thing about creation is not the raw materials; it’s how the materials are assembled. I’m 95% hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon. The only difference between me and three buckets of water and a bucket of coal is how those materials are arranged. Leadership is assembling a group of people around a common purpose and developing a way to bond them together.