Gary Harpst | SpeakerHub

Personal Details

Bio

Gary Harpst is the CEO of LeadFirst, a leadership development company. His passion is combining business excellence and biblical wisdom. He co-founded three high-tech businesses, including Solomon Software which merged with Great Plains and was sold to Microsoft.

A dynamic speaker, Gary challenges and motivates his audiences using wisdom, humor and incisive anecdotes from four decades of CEO leadership. He has spoken hundreds of times in workshop, sermon, graduation and keynote formats.

Gary has authored three books with his latest “Built to Beat Chaos, Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others” (Wiley) is being released April 2023. He has built an overflowing life with his wife, three children, and four grandchildren.

Current position (1)

Founder, CEO

LeadFirst.ai

Achievements (3)

Author, Built to Beat Chaos (Wiley, April 2023)

Author, Six Disciplines for Excellence

Author, Execution Revolution, best seller

Degrees (1)

Masters of Business Administration

MBA Fisher School of Business (OSU)

1974 to 1976

Presentations

Presentations (5)

Built to Beat Chaos, Biblical Wisdom for Leading Yourself and Others

Today’s leaders are well acquainted with chaos. While most businesses (hopefully) enjoy times of success and smooth sailing, we also face periods of disruption, upheaval, discord, and extreme stress. We may be tempted to approach these chaos cycles by putting our head down and waiting for the storm to pass. But Gary Harpst has an encouraging message: We are not created to be victims of chaos, but to harness it for our own purposes.

Gary delivers an insightful and practical discussion of how to transform chaos into order by relying on strategies drawn directly from the Bible. You’ll learn how to find fulfillment and success by leaning into your innate ability to calm the madness and control chaos.

Why People Do What They Do?

People often do inexplicable things both great and sometimes disruptive. As leaders, we are more effective when we understand human purpose and design. The Bible has clear and somewhat surprising insights about why people do what they do and give leaders a framework for engaging hearts and minds.
In this session, participants will take away:
• Our human charter and what it means to be created in the image of God.
• Why chaos is not our problem, but our purpose.
• The role of desire, reason, imagination and action in human design.
• The number one tool for overcoming chaos.
• The biggest barrier to overcoming chaos. The paradox all leaders face.
• What leaders must know, do and be to grow in effectiveness

How to Build a People First Culture in a Process Centric World

We often use an “or” model. People are detail OR big picture oriented. Individuals are tasks OR people driven. Leaders must learn how to leverage these individual differences. But organizations as a whole must be effective at the big picture AND the details. It must be good at executing tasks AND relating to people.
Gary makes the case that effective organizations must master both the process dimension of excellence and the people dimension of engagement. He challenges leaders to lay the foundation of a people-first mindset upon which process excellence is built.
Take aways:
• The biblical explanation of why human civilization has made amazing progress on the technology front but no progress on the human relationship dimension.
• A five-step model for building “oneness”. Going beyond just teamwork to alignment around shared purpose.
• How to sustain the oneness model as the organization grows and changes.
• New insights on the real purpose of leadership.

Why Order is Easier to Create than Keep

People want to win. More accurately, the Bible says they need to win. That is what we all are created for. This need drives us to things that seem almost impossible. We don’t have to think long to identify jaw dropping healthcare that saves an infant's life that was born with heart defects, or a breathtaking musical performance or athletic feat. We are swimming in human achievement.
But the brutal facts are that once something is built like a home or especially a business it takes more energy and effort to sustain its existence than it did to create it. Most of us as builders are simply not prepared for that. Leaders have to confront themselves with the realization that their role is not just to bring order out of chaos, but to maintain order as people and products come and go – as organizations and the world around them changes.

Learn what to do about this challenging reality.

People Don't Obey the Laws of Physics. The Essence of Leadership

The Bible says the study of the universe reveals truth about God (and since we are created in His image something about ourselves as well). One peculiar truth is that the whole universe is made up 98% of two simple atoms – hydrogen and helium. And yet from those two atoms galaxies, human beings, flowers, animals, trees all have been created. This teaches us something important about leadership. Creating things is not as much about the raw materials used but the wisdom to integrate them in unique ways.
A primary role of leaders is to integrate people around a shared purpose. But when God did His amazing integration work, He used the laws of physics to bind atoms together in different ways. Leaders however are challenged to bind people together who do not obey the laws of physics. This is the essence of the challenge of leadership and why it is the most meaningful work in the world.