Biblical Leadership @ Work
Biblical Leadership @ Work
Jerry Bowyer - CEO of Bowyer Research
Jerry Bowyer joins me this month to discuss a wide array of topics concerning leadership and career paths. Jerry has a fascinating and diverse background and thinks deeply about subjects impacting all leaders.
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Welcome to the biblical leadership at work podcast. I am your host, Jason watered on this month's episode. I was very honored to have as my guest, Jerry Boyer. Jerry is the CEO of Boyer research and host of the meeting of the minds podcast. Aside from being an author of several books, including the makers versus the takers. And a commentator on Fox business, Fox news and CNBC. Jerry has written for the wall street journal, world news group Forbes and the national review. Jerry has a fascinating and diverse background, spanning industries, such as radio financial auditing, wealth management, and think tank leadership. In our interview, we cover a wide variety of topics and Gerry provides practical and thought provoking insight into each of them. So now let's get into the show. Okay. Jerry Boyer, brother, is super excited to have you on the show and have the guests learn about you and a very diverse, fascinating background. So thank you brother for taking the time to join us today.
Jerry:my pleasure, Jason. Thank you for the invitation.
Jason:So let's get started. Uh, learn a little bit about your background. I know you've done a lot of things professionally. Can you kind of give us a summary of that? And then also your educational background.
Jerry:Well, goodness. Um, it's a very, it's a varied career. It would be hard to kind of summarize it, um, unless I very much, um, you know, go to kind of 35, 000 feet to summarize it. Um, so the, what I would say is that throughout all of my life, um, I have at the same time Been somebody who's been involved with money, uh, actual money, uh, either finance auditing, uh, um, uh, you know, investment management, forecasting, et cetera, uh, actual business. And also on a track that is media thought leader worldview ish. So those have always been going on. Um, sometimes I've been more on one than the other. Right. Sometimes. So there was a time when I was with, you know, a big six accounting firm, um, auditing, uh, mutual funds, uh, but also doing a little radio hosting on the side. And there are sometimes when I was running a think tank and doing lots and lots of policy work, um, you know, and debate and dealing with big issues, uh, but also maybe sitting on an investment committee on the side. But they've always, both of those things have always been in a parallel track. Um, and recently they've come together a good deal more in that the work that I'm doing in finance is to a large degree, what's growing for us. And we maybe get into this a little bit later. Is interacting with corporations, um, from the standpoint of their investors, trying to get them back on track, focused on their core business issue. And out of dabbling in the cultural revolution, um, you know, you know, companies like target and Disney, but not just them, everybody to one degree or another. Uh, so, you know, I help with say ETFs, which I, if someone's not in finance, you know, mu kind of, kind of mutual funds now are ETFs. The, the thing that a lot of people grow up and they thought about as mutual funds, pretty much, people don't really start mutual funds anymore. They start something called ETF and then they don't even know it's different. So it's an investment fund, you know, helping the investment funds we work with. Institutional investors, um, advocate, uh, for their worldview with these companies so that these things are kind of merged together to a degree. They've never been merged together before. So, uh, uh, you know, I, um, was a, an accounting major in college. That was Robert Morris. Um, and I came out of their work for Arthur Anderson, um, Uh, then worked for a family office for a family that owns a very owned and does own a very large mutual fund family. And then from there it was a pension administrator for an actuarial firm. And then I went and did the think tank thing for a while, then media. Um, and, um, also serving on a number of investment committees about 12 years ago, um, I got involved with some institutional investors and some large Christian. Financial advisors, uh, helping them to, uh, build out, um, solutions in investing and also to do macroeconomic forecasting. And in the past, say, four years, and really a lot in the past two years, um, I've really gotten into the area of proxy voting, um, which is a highly specialized area, but extremely important, uh, where investors, whether it's an individual investor or a fund owner, They have votes, um, and so they can elect boards of directors or not reelect them. And they can vote on various proposals, uh, having to do with governance issues or increasingly ESG proposals that are political. And that's kind of like, that's the growth side of, of the business. Also, there's always been a certain amount of church involvement. Um, I'm an ordained deacon. Um, so in the tradition that I was working, that's, that's clergy, not if you're a Baptist or if you're a deacon, you're on the deacons board. Usually that's like a board member, but that's, but, um, uh, in the tradition which I was serving, that's ordained, uh, so there's guest preaching and doing various sorts of ministry. So that's the, that's, that's, uh, as much as I can summarize it without getting into. a long, long history, which someone can read on the
Jason:Yeah. And as I, as
Jerry:or the Wikipedia
Jason:as I, well, and I read that, yeah. As I prepared for this and read that, I'm like, this, Jerry's done a lot and you're still doing a lot. And we'll talk a little bit in the end about how people can connect with you or follow you. I know that you write for World News Group, which is, uh, I'm a huge fan of and following those guys for a decade. So, uh, yeah, like to follow you on there and many other places. So,
Jerry:Yeah. I have a piece in a world today as of the time of this recording, right? Which is largely a review of David Bonson's new book, um, about work, work and the meaning of your life or work, the meaning of your life, which is a terrific book. Um, and, uh, so I've got a piece on wng. com, uh, today talking about
Jason:that was a great book. And I was, uh. Yeah, I ate that book up in about a week and then I was super excited to interview him and I get that out there, too. Hey, Jerry, tell us a little bit about your family, on the personal side. Where do you live? Family? Wife?
Jerry:I live in the Pittsburgh area, um, with my wife and one of our kids. Uh, the other kids have moved out. I've got seven kids. Uh, five of the seven I see pretty much every day because they work for the family business. So, you know, we're here in our home where our offices are. My wife's right there. We're at our dining room. Um, we've been joking that if we named our business, if we gave a name to our business conglomerate, we would call it the dining room group, uh, because that's where we are right now. Um, and we bought a big old farmhouse and before we owned it, it had been, um, uh, a chiropractor's office. And so he had waiting rooms. And so those waiting rooms now are the various offices for the members of our family who, uh, work for a Boyer research. So Christopher, Jeremy, grace, hope, mercy, Charlie, and Jack. Uh, and, um, three grandchildren.
Jason:How old are your grandchildren?
Jerry:Uh, so let me see. Um, Arthur is five and Ina is two and Felix is
Jason:Ah, we have a five year old and a one year old, both granddaughters. What a joy. What a
Jerry:Yeah. Oh, very much so. We're looking forward. It's, uh, it's a Memaw weekend coming up this weekend. So, uh, uh, we're looking forward to them being over here and having a sleepover.
Jason:Tell us a little bit about your faith, Jerry. How did you, did you grow up in the church? Like what would that look like coming to Christ? And you talked a little bit about your church tradition. I'd be interested in what that is.
Jerry:Yeah, I, I grew up in the Methodist church. Um, and I, I mean, when I was born into that church, it was very fire brimstone holiness, you know, perfectionism, sort of Oberlin, you know what I get kind of, um, right. But, but, but that was kind of before I was conscious of anything. So. That pastor retired, by the way, that, that pastor is my wife's grandfather, but we didn't know that, like, we, we, we, you know, we, we met, you know, eight, 18, 19 years later, 400 miles away, and then we, you know, I started talking about my church and she's like, wait, You know, you were in Easton? Uh, yeah. First United Methodist? Yes. Was your pastor named Chester Buzzard? Yes, so. Um, but we didn't know that we knew each other until, um, until much later. Uh, by the time that I was aware of things, probably like 8, 9, 10 years old, he had retired. And it was basically kind of Simon and Garfunkel songs and encounter groups. And, you know, they kind of reacted and went in the other
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:Uh, none of it stuck. Really, with me, um, as a teenager, I read a lot of atheist stuff, Marx and Nietzsche and Frome and, and others and, you know, um, so I remember talking to the pastor about it and telling him that I didn't believe in God and he was surprised by that and he asked me why I didn't believe and I asked him why I should believe and he said because your mother and, and father believe and Um, I don't, you know, I don't think it's genetic. So that wasn't, that wasn't persuasive to me. Uh, so did a lot of reading, basically spent most of my high school career skipping class, hanging out in the library, reading through Morton Adler's great books collection, um, kind of working my way through Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas and a bunch of the rest. Um, and, um, that, that convinced me that Christians were intellectually respectable, but it didn't convince me that Christianity was true. Uh, and then later, about age 19, uh, I met a Presbyterian pastor, uh, Orthodox Presbyterian Church pastor, who introduced me to presuppositional apologetics in the work of Cornelius Van Till. And he seemed to be the only one who was dropping depth charges down deep enough at the presuppositional level to kind of really deal with the issues that, that I was dealing with. Right? Because I'd always read these people who were critical thinkers, and now we have critical race theory, and there's, you know, there's critical legal theory, and they're all basically the same thing. They're basically Marxist philosophers saying, don't believe authority. Don't believe the authority figures. It's all a power game. Or it's all a wealth game, or it's all a male domination game, or it's all a sexual repression game. But I came to realize through reading Van Til that they would do that to everybody else's presuppositions But they never allowed anyone to do that to their presuppositions. They never turned their criticism, their critical stance on
Jason:Yeah. I never turned it inward. Mm
Jerry:Marx says everyone does everything because of economic interest. It's like, well, how about you Carl? Do you or Freud says everyone does everything because they're because of their sexual repression is like, okay, how about you, Sigmund? Does that does that apply to you? Or Darwin says everyone who's, you know, has an opinion. It's really just instinct and Uh, it's like, okay, Charlie, how about you? Are you, are your theories just instinct? And at that point, I realized that you're either going to have Christian presuppositions or you're going to have utter collapse. Um, and so I became a Christian. And, uh, um, was in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church for a while. I've been in a number of different church traditions, most recently serving in the Episcopal Church, um, in, uh, the Pittsburgh area. But at some, uh, there came a point where, as an outspoken conservative, my position no longer became tenable. It was no, you know, I was no longer able to serve. So I tried to just follow the example of the apostles, which is to stay until they push you out. So that's kind of the situation now.
Jason:Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, some of the mainline denominations of, uh, yeah. Gone now. Gone the wrong way. So it's, it's tough. Yeah. To make that decision. I think, you know, I know people that have had to think through that. Do I stay and try to make a difference or do I just leave and, you know, and, and move into something else that, you know, that's more in line with, uh, the truth and orthodoxy. So, yeah.
Jerry:Yeah. And we went through that because our diocese actually underwent a split. And some people said, you know, I'm going, I can't stay. Um, and some of us said, well, we're going to stay until we can't. Right. Um, and, but, and eventually it got to the can't. Uh, but you know, our, our conviction. Not saying that someone's wrong to leave. Our conviction is not until they push us out the door, not until they say you're not a deacon, you can't preach, you can't serve the Eucharist, you can't anoint the sick, don't call us. We'll call you right at that point. Um, then there's really nothing else to do.
Jason:we'll keep fighting the good fight, brother. That's good. Hey, Jerry. So this podcast is, as we talked about earlier, is a leadership podcast. We're here to learn from people who have been in leadership roles over a course of decades. And look at your background. I mean, you've, uh, you've done a lot of leadership in various capacities. So, uh, one of the questions I always like to ask people is what is, what is your, core leadership principle that you've developed over the years kind of that thing you you know leadership to you is the foundation for you that you think about
Jerry:Core leadership principle. That's interesting. Uh, I don't know if there's one core, um, uh, kind of a lifelong theme is You know, um, seek after, after wisdom more than after silver and gold. And with all thy getting, get understanding. So I've tried to pursue that as a leader and as a follower. Uh, so there are times when there was more power or wealth available, but I've tried to follow the principle of, I'm going to do the thing where I'm learning, where I'm gathering wisdom. I think another, uh, you know, another theme would be. a strong focus on diligence, which I've tried to instill in the whole family business with Joseph the Patriarch, you know, in Egypt under Potiphar, uh, as an example, just to be a load bearing structure, knowing that over the long run, responsibility will gravitate more and more to people. who competently bear responsibility. Uh, and a related one to that is Jesus's parable about when you're invited to a dinner party, sit at the foot of the table, not at the head. Um, so that because if you sit at the head, um, the founder of the feast might say, go down to the, down to the foot, but if you're at the foot, he can say, come forward. So I think I've tried to gravitate to places where, where I've learned. Not, yes, not fret about the org chart a whole lot or the resume. Um, you know, sort of building a corporate resume, just try to go, go, go where the learning is. Try to be diligent there. Try to be the person who someone can depend on to get the thing done that needs to be done. Um, not put myself forward in that role. Not say, I'm the leader, make me the leader. Uh, but just do that and then see what God does with that in terms of. I'd say those would be the, uh, the
Jason:Yeah, I like that. I mean, that's a really I think godly humble approach and sometimes as leaders we get caught up in building that resume and It's it's it can be a trap and as to me what you said about continuous learning. And I can tell you, I mean, you're an intellectual, you study, you read deeply when you were young. And I found that, um, as a leader, I mean, you can never stop challenging yourself because you never, that's something you never master. I just, I mean, I've, I've had the privilege of leading people in some contexts for 25 years. And. I just continued to want to learn about it. And I just, I just read a book a couple of weeks ago on leadership and still pulled things from that, that I had never really thought about before. And, you know, much of it was things I had thought about and needed reminding, or it's kind of like scripture, you know, you keep reading it cause you need to be sharpened and convicted. And, you know, things come at you a little different way if you're in a different area of life. So continuous learning is, is huge. I, it's, it's, it's gotta be a lifelong pursuit, I think, for, for leaders and believers.
Jerry:Yeah, I, I used to read a lot of leadership books, and I like leadership books. Um, so, when I say used to, that makes it sound like I don't think they're a good idea. I do think they're a good idea, but um, I did them because one of those phases in my career, I was a radio talk show host. Um, and I did something that, um, we called leadership radio, which is, we had a, a kind of a, a mantra for that, you know, spend some time every day in the company of the greatest and wisest men and women who've ever lived. So it was leadership books, leadership studies, biographies, and histories. Um, so what was interesting about that is I was on a radio station where. You know, there's some radio stations because of their, uh, the, the regulations, they're low power until sunup. Um, I don't know if you're
Jason:No, no.
Jerry:Well, the, I, the, I, the ionosphere changes with sunup. And so the signal bounces differently. So, um, so, um, you have to be low power until sunup, and then you can be high power. So the first hour, you know, five o'clock to six o'clock in the morning. Um, there, it wasn't like high stakes. So I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. So that's when I did all that leadership stuff. Um, and then after the sun came up, I had to do whatever was the hot topic of the day, right? Elian Gonzalez or recount in Florida or, uh, you know, Iraq war or, you know, or before that Clinton scandals or whatever, there's always, there was always a play the hits thing, but I didn't want to play the hits, um, because the hits are crises. That the hips are talking about crises that would not have occurred if we got leadership right in the first
Jason:right. Yep.
Jerry:So I tried to sort of tithe as much time as I could into, uh, into leadership study at that time. So it was kind of my job to read a bunch of leadership books. I still do. I still read some, uh, just not as many as I, as I used to, but sometimes I'll read the same authors over and over again. There's some that just, you know, I've had a much bigger impact on me than others. Um, so,
Jason:favorites? Who you like most?
Jerry:uh, big influence on me is George Gilder, who people don't usually think of as a leadership author, um, but he's an economist and he's probably the most prescient technology thinker alive. I mean, you go back, yeah, George Gilder, you know who I'm talking about? Yeah, uh, all right, George Gilder. Wrote, uh, the book that Ronald Reagan quoted most, called Wealth and Poverty. Um, went on to write a book called Life After Television in the 90s, in which he said, Your, your, your TV and your computer and your internet are all going to be on your phone. Uh, it's all going to be one thing. Uh, and everyone said he was crazy. Uh, and then he said, you know, what's going to happen is there's going to be these currencies that are, Cryptographic currencies. So he's been way ahead of the curve. And what really helped me with Gilder is he got me into the idea of the learning curve, which is that you do a thing, and the more you do that thing, the lower, the better you get at it with obvious, right? And the learning curve is the idea that roughly in almost every area of business, That with every doubling of production, there's a 30 percent decrease in unit costs so that once you have a product or function or service that you're doing, scale up the volume and you'll, you and your team will get so good at it that you can beat the competition, um, cost wise. Um, I mean, you can beat on quality, but you can also beat on costs because you just become. Highly efficient. And that's the learning curve. So that's been really influential for me. And I read, I first read him back when I was at Arthur Anderson, right out of college in the early eighties. And he said, you know, these computers are going to be like machines, like in factories, but for knowledge workers. And I took that to heart and threw myself into Lotus and then later Excel. Um, and made it part of our culture, but my, my leadership culture and my families and my businesses are all the same because it's one thing. Which is learn technology, just, you know, uh, degrees. Yeah, degrees, maybe, maybe not, but really just learn the tech and get good at it. Um, and, uh, that was sort of when we homeschooled the kids and what we required of them is to essentially get a good worldview, you know, get exposed to the classics, have good character and be productive. And being productive was largely a matter of learning how to apply technology. And so, you know, two of them are successful in programming and they're doing database work and now AI. So, you know, that's, that's, that's Gilder's influence. Um,
Jason:What do you think about, uh, how should someone who's in middle management, maybe upper management right now, think about AI, Jerry, and the next 10 years, 15 years, I mean, there's so many wild, Theories and thoughts on that. I'd like to get your perspective,
Jerry:well, that's a good question. I've spent very, very little time in middle management. Um, I spent, you know, time in, uh, kind of in consulting, right. Um, so we were dealing with middle or upper management, you know, as an auditing firm and a tax firm. Um, So we, um, and so, I mean, we would deal with the, with the controller of a company, but the controller would have somebody else who actually, you know, ran the reports who knew
Jason:right? Right,
Jerry:was, there was always a Rosemary or a Sally or somebody who kind of knew what was going on. She didn't have a college degree, so she couldn't have be high up in the org chart, but she knew everything. So, um, um, so we dealt with all sorts of people and, and they're, and they're diligent, they don't get ahead that much, but no one dares fire them because The system shuts down without them. Yeah, exactly. Um, so I haven't thought hard about middle management. Um, because I've always tried to gravitate towards places where if I'm right, I'm rewarded. And if I'm wrong, I'm punished. And the, I think the challenge of middle management is that being right or wrong does not necessarily lead to success or
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:That what I've seen, what's
Jason:It's less risk.
Jerry:Yeah, just right. We just survive, right? Survive and rise gradually to the top. Or I've seen people who are good kind of knife fighters. I've seen, I've seen people fail upwards in shocking ways, right? Uh, you know that it's like they leave the company to go, you know, to another, they go to a stage up in another company in their middle management, and they. We're terrible in the previous job. Uh, so they're able to kind of, um, navigate that system. So I, I can't be in, I can't be highly encouraging because mostly what I've seen as an outside observer in middle management situations is problems. Like a lack, a lack of meritocracy. Um, and I know there's sort of a debate about DEI and meritocracy. I'm not talking about that. I'm just talking about people who are good. At managing their managers, you know, people who are good at sort of getting ahead. Um, and I've seen, you know, that happened. And so I, I don't think I could do that. So my, I guess my sense is from outside that being a diligent person in middle management involves a great deal more patience than being an entrepreneur.
Jason:Yes. Yeah.
Jerry:because there's a, there's a. Because entrepreneur, I mean, you went entrepreneurs, it's hard for an entrepreneur to get ahead unless they make good decisions. Um, and it's hard for them to do poorly unless they make a fair number of bad decisions, although there can be bad timing. But so there's so much whim in a corporate hierarchy, in my experience, somebody just likes somebody or doesn't, uh, that, uh, You know, that's got to be a really tough environment, and that's a gift, right? And you read in the Bible, there are people who are stewards, right? There's somebody who's working in Herod's house, you know? Or, you know, you've got Hosea, who's the treasurer, and his wife Susanna is a follower of Jesus. You've got these, you've got these stories in the Book of Kings. You have a lot of middle management in the Bible, right? And a lot of middle management is, Do the right thing and trust God, but you might not be rewarded. You might just get your head cut off, you know, uh, and you might have a bad boss. And how do you, how do you navigate that? So I'm sorry, this isn't helpful because I'm telling you all the problems I see for people in middle management.
Jason:Well, I think about, you know, that's why this, the whole question
Jerry:all the challenges.
Jason:And the question
Jerry:yeah. Oh, your question was about AI. Yeah. All
Jason:do we. As someone who's in that level, I mean, you know, do we have to be early adopters? Should it be, we thinking about it every day, using it for as much as possible, let it play out. It's interesting because I mean, I've been in, so I work in manufacturing and I saw, I've, I've been in it long enough to have seen the wave of automation, right? Robotics and, um, machine tools that 30 years ago people didn't really think about very much. And I've seen the wave come through and how we adapted to it in our industry and how workers have had to adapt to it. And I wondered to myself, is that what, you know, is AI just going to be another wave of automation for the knowledge worker in the next 10 years, five years. And, you know, people are talking about it's going to take over the world and we're all going to die. And, you know, we know as believers that God is sovereign. He will allow it only to happen what he wants to happen. But so I just wonder, like, how should we be thinking about that? We play with it a little bit. We dabble in it and some companies are going after it full head of steam to use it as users, not developers. I'm talking about just people who might use it and leverage it to do their job better.
Jerry:I see Your question was a whole lot more about AI than it was about
Jason:Yeah, no, that's okay though. Cause I, your, your insight's interesting. Um, that's
Jerry:long spiel about middle management. Um, alright, so ai, uh, I, I am, I'm pretty much all in, in terms of leveraging it. Um, we use AI a lot. We feel like it levels the playing field for a small firm like ours against the big firms. So for example, um, using that, we were able to kind of leap ahead, uh, of a firm that's been around for decades longer than we are, um, in terms of producing a robust set of, of research on a topic. You know that we were kind of a new entrant into the field and shoot just right over top of them. Uh, and it's interesting. It's got, um, one of our, one of our kids are, uh, youngest daughter is autistic and she's our AI specialist and she has a certain gift for prompt engineering. Um, you know, I think because of her neuro diversity, right? So she, I mean, she pretty much single handedly. You know, leapt us ahead of a company with 1000 workers and a couple of decade head start on us just by using a
Jason:And using it well.
Jerry:and using it well. So I mean, obviously, you have to be really cautious because a I lies. Um, it's not a truth machine. It, um, it is an association machine. It hallucinates. Eso I like to say a I is absolutely terrific technology just so long as the answer doesn't have to be
Jason:Right. Right.
Jerry:when people say, Well, when doesn't the answer have to be right? And the, and I say for the first draft, the answer doesn't
Jason:Right. Yeah.
Jerry:Uh, you just have to identify certain things and certain opportunities. Uh, so, um, I do these quarterly calls for kingdom advisors where we look at sort of the economics. And I was looking at the futures market for presidential futures. Who's more, most likely to win the election. And Biden had been pulling ahead of Trump and he pulled ahead in this probability market on March 29th. And I, why? So I asked AI. What happened on March 29th that would be relevant to the, um, a political contest between Donald Trump and, between Trump and Biden. And it gave me seven or eight answers and six of them were just nonsense. What are you talking about? Right. But one of them was like, Oh, there was a huge fundraiser for Biden that day. Uh, and Clinton and Obama were both there and he raised 26 million. It's like, Oh, that's it. The party got behind him. So most of what AI told me was nonsense, but one of the things rang true. So AI can serve up options to you. Um, and so I, I, I love it. I, I, I am not. With with the Christians who are, you know, always suspicious of new technologies. That's not my orientation at all. I think we should be first adopters. And first adopters means either developers or first adopters, because that means we steer it in the right direction. I can tell you, AI is our enemy philosophically. I mean, I spent an hour debating chat GPT for about evolution, you know, one evening. And it just read like another atheist troll on social media.
Jason:that's great.
Jerry:you know, so it's like, all right, I know where it's getting its information. So I, I, I don't, so don't trust it. Uh, but it's a pet, right? So you got to train it.
Jason:Yeah. I've been able to, as I mentioned, the podcast I do here is a, it's a ministry. It's a hobby. I mean, I have a full time job, but I've been able to leverage it to put a broad in my content and much faster and much faster. So I've been able to use it to do a lot. Cause my podcast all generate a, uh, transcript. So I have the entire conversation so I can summarize chapters. All it's, it's been incredible again. I'm a dabbler. I'm not even near where you guys are, but it's, uh, it's been an incredible tool. But, uh,
Jerry:we're not even near where we want to be, right? So we're, we're, we're trying to up our AI game. Um, I think it's a powerful technology. I also think it's not the idol. It's not the utopian idol that the techno utopians in Silicon Valley make it out to be. It's not going to become smarter than human beings. We cannot out create God. Therefore, we can't create something that's better than
Jason:right.
Jerry:We are the greatest, we're the greatest thing that God created in material reality. There's nothing higher than us in the created order. So, um, we can't make something better than us. If we could make something better than us, we'd be better makers than God. So I'm not afraid that it will surpass us. I'm afraid that we'll misuse it. I'm afraid that we'll make an idol out of it, thinking that it can surpass us. Um, but I'm not afraid that it's going to get smarter than we are. I don't see how it possibly could, because we can't possibly
Jason:No, that's good. Biblical logic on that. Hey, different question, Jerry. Think back when, uh, you were. younger leader in a leadership role. I like to ask people about something they struggled with and as a leader and how they overcame it. Because I think there's probably other people listening that maybe are going through that and can learn from your hindsight. So leadership early in your career, mistakes you made, things you struggled with. How did you learn through that?
Jerry:Well, it's mostly been mistakes and struggles. So it would be really hard
Jason:That's how we learn, right?
Jerry:to nail that down. Um,
Jason:A certain theme, maybe, that you had when you were a younger leader that, uh, that was a little more difficult to overcome?
Jerry:I think the first major, um, struggle for me was that I was an accounting major, went to work for a big accounting firm and I was not well suited to that. So I was working outside my set of gifts. Now you might say, well, you work with finance and you look at balance sheets or whatever. Yeah. That's different than being. Yeah, because I mean, You know, the other thing is tick marks and filling out forms. And I just like hit that wall. Um, and didn't, I had trouble getting around that. Now I was able to succeed to some degree cause I was interested in information technology. So I was able to do some technology fixes to some things, but just being like another drone in the accounting hive, you know, I failed at that. It just was not good at that. Um, so. You know, I did that because it was sort of like guaranteed
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:Um, uh, the other thing was, you know, when I ran a think tank in my early thirties, um, and it had, it had one particular major funder, um, and we went out there and we battled in public policy arenas and we did a whole lot better than anyone ever expected. Uh, we won a lot of battles and Um, that created enemies and enemies talked to our board members and funders to sort of try to get even and I found myself in a position of crisis with a major funder, despite the fact that we won despite the fact we were given a mission by this funder and and what he said is you're not going to win. It's not going to succeed, but we want you to at least try. And we tried and by God's grace, we won and that created ill will. And then people sort of whispered and cocktail parties and all of a sudden we're in trouble. And that was one of the big wake up calls of my life. That's when I realized I did not want to be in a situation. I, that's what I, I didn't want to be in nonprofit world. Um, and particular in sort of public policy, nonprofit world, where you could almost get fired or lose funding for getting it right. So, um, at that point I gravitate, gravitate it over to, I will take a lower status job in a situation where if I'm right and it works, we, I get reward to take as much whim out of it as I
Jason:Yeah. Even if you're, even if you make enemies, being right, right, in the business world, you get
Jerry:yeah, I mean, even if you make enemies doing the, doing the mission, right. You know, so, um, I'd say those are the two big, those are kind of, one was in my mid twenties and the other was in my, uh, my mid thirties. Um, so I think those are probably the two big crises. I, I suppose the other one was, you know, a little bit later, I kind of got pulled into fame a little bit too. I did a lot of media, um, and I, and media is hard. Everyone wants to, a lot of people wanted to be on TV and radio and I had gotten over that and was getting on TV and radio and I kept doing it even when it didn't make any sense. Because everyone wants it, therefore, it must be good, therefore, I should do it. And, uh, we can't get into all this, but I, you know, read a lot about the anthropologist, Rene Girard, who talks about rivalry, imitation and rivalry, about how people want a thing just because another person wants it. Uh, and I realized that that was going on, so I sort of dropped out. So, you know, there are these crises where I make a, where I learn something painful and then generally make a career change. And, um, and sort of start over to some in each of those cases. I sort of had to start over a little bit. So I've got if the career path is like spike. Wow, this is really promising guy crash then spike. Oh, wow. Who is this guy crash? And you know, that's kind of been the pattern so far. And right now, I'm on an upswing, but I also know they don't last forever.
Jason:Well, I, it makes me think about something I've had to figure out in my career and that you, uh, Eventually figure out what you're good at what god's called you gifted you to do And being comfortable and okay with that even if that's not what other people say Success looks like or great looks like I mean, I've, I've struggled with that. Well, that, that must be right, because that's where all the fame and glory is or whatever. But getting to a point where you're like, no, I like what I'm doing, what I get to do is what I love to do. And I'm okay. I'm comfortable saying good for him, good for her, not interested. And I think that's, that comes with some maturity and some learning. Uh, at least it has for me over a few decades. I'm a slow learner. So.
Jerry:Yeah, I'm kind of reminded of a conversation an older friend had with me, advice he gave me, during that think tank situation, where there was alienation from the funder and some members of the board. So we fought through that actually and we won again over the internal opposition, right? Uh, and then my friend who was also on the board of directors and one of the funders said, um, uh, do you want to leave or stay? Um, and I said, I want to stay. We just won. Why would I leave? And he said, I'm asking if you want to leave or stay. And I realized that the only reason I wanted to stay is because there had been a battle for control of the organization. So therefore it must be worth fighting for. We were able to sort of push out the troublemaking board members. Um, and therefore we won the prize. But I didn't like it anymore. And so he had a mature Christian believer, mature entrepreneur who asked a question that had never occurred to me to ask, do you actually like it now? And I didn't like the job anymore. Right? So I ended up fighting for control, fighting for survival, surviving. And then leaving, uh, because I didn't like it anymore.
Jason:Yep. I had a, uh, one of my greatest mentors in my career told me the day that I wake up and don't want to come in here and do this work, I'm just not gonna anymore because, and I thought that's mind boggling to me to think that, that you can do that. But I understand more and more, you know, what he was talking about, you know, finding joy and satisfaction in the work through the good and bad, but knowing this is what I'm called to do. This is what God's given me to do. And. It's not what everybody else is called to do. It can be very different and that's fine. And that's okay. I'm super comfortable. I am super comfortable walking into a manufacturing plant every day. I love it. I absolutely love it. And I know a lot of people that would have zero desire to do that. And I'm okay with that. And it took me a long time to be like, a lot of people think that's bad. You know, it's all you don't want to go do and, you know, work in a factory and that's not good. And I'm like, I've made a career of it and love it and seen how God's worked through me and in me and that.
Jerry:Why do they say it's not good? What do they think's
Jason:Well, you know, I grew up in a very blue collar area and it was just a lot of dead end, dead end jobs, you know, factory rats. That's a terminology that was thrown around a lot. You know, you just go do a job that has no, that has no meaning. But again, as I've also come to mature in my understanding of scripture and how God has made us to work and reading books like David's book and other authors who write about that to say that there's inherent value in the work that you're doing, not just in the tangible benefits of getting money, getting a paycheck, providing for your family. It's more than that. And it took me a long time to really understand that and see work no matter what it is, as long as it's not inherently sinful work, the majority of work isn't, but. That that there's value in the work and doing the work and I look at my work Totally differently than I used to when I look at products that we make People that are being developed and learning and growing. I'm like, these are all characteristics of god creation, right? sanctification not maybe not sanctification is sometimes in a spiritual sense in the workplace, but that growth and that development of the human mind and learning and that's all like that's all what god designed us to do as well as Repent and believe that He is who He says He is. He has also created us to work. So, anyways, um, you know, getting
Jerry:I mean, I, you know, I read Genesis one and I see, you know, a manufacturing process,
Jason:Yep.
Jerry:you know, and, uh, St. Chrysostom called God the master builder. Um, so, you know, I think it's the philosophers who maybe have to explain why, what they do for a living is
Jason:Yeah. Right, right.
Jerry:I, I don't, I don't think, uh, people who work in factories need to explain it. I think it's, it's, uh, pretty tangible. This is a point that Peter Thiel has made a very successful entrepreneur in another of my, sort of my favorite business books, zero to one that, um, in our lifetime, we have advantaged, uh, jobs and careers that are focused in and around electrons and not ones that are focused in and around atoms. Right. So something weighs something. We think that's kind of inferior work. Um, and if something is just information, we think it's, it's, uh, superior. And, you know, that, that doesn't make any sense. So, I mean, part of it is probably the regulatory environment is more favorable towards, you know, towards the, you know, the economy. Um, but honestly, I would say in general, the economy is more likely to be parasitical. Um, and, um, exploitative. Then the atom economy like so there's not a lot of manufacturing that's going on that I think of as Bad bad or exploitative, right? Um, I mean there's maybe some things but I mean if someone's If someone's making electronic goods, if somebody's making automobile parts or automobiles, they're making, you know, components for homes or whatever they're manufacturing, those are, for the, for the most part, for the vast majority of things, are inherently good. But if you look, but if you look at the, at the, quote, knowledge economy, computer program, increasingly it's social media, which is monetizing conflict and propaganda, streaming services. Which are in essence, addictive, really. Um, you know, you binge watch, you know, something that's addictive. Um, and I mean, sometimes it's sexually exploitative or violent, but sometimes it's not. Sometimes it's perfectly good entertainment, but do you, do you really need to do ten hours of it
Jason:Right.
Jerry:on a Saturday? Right? Um, no, that's, that's addictive behavior. That's unhealthy behavior. Uh, and increasingly gambling.
Jason:Yeah. Oh yeah. For sure. Yup.
Jerry:right? And which is starting to basically start to dominate sports broadcasting now and streaming services and you go from video games into gambling. So, I'd say the, the electron, the knowledge worker economy is getting to be a high proportion of the value of that is exploitative. Uh, and I don't think that's true of manufacturing.
Jason:That's a great point. I love manufacturing now. I love it more. So thank you. That's great. No, I, yeah, I mean I've spent. my whole adult life watching things get built and made. And it's, yeah, I love it. Love the sounds of smells of sites. And it's a, it's fascinating. It never gets old for me. We've talked a lot about leadership authors. You've hit it on a couple of books, Jerry, but one of the things I always like to do is share with, uh, share with those that are listening other sources that you would recommend from a leadership perspective, podcasts, books, who you follow, who you like, you've thrown out a couple, but any others that come to mind, uh, That you would recommend.
Jerry:Yeah, like I said, I don't do a lot of leadership books and podcasts just now. Uh, I've been on a little bit though of a Dan Sullivan kick, the, uh, strategic entrepreneur. I don't know if you're familiar with him. That's it's, it's probably the, probably the biggest of the coaching programs, entrepreneur coaching programs. Um, so I, I have been listening to that. Um, And a lot of it is about, um, kind of in that 80 20 rule stuff, you know, where you get 80 percent of your value from 20 percent of, of your, right. If the Pareto principle, right. Um, and I tried to practice that earlier in life. And then I've kind of got into just like 80 hour work weeks again, and I'm trying to get back to that Pareto principle, finding that 20%. Staffing up a little more staffing up sooner than I would have probably before. So I listened to them. I, you know, another area that I, that maybe is underutilized is I think that entrepreneurs, um, maybe need to pay a little bit more attention to, uh, fitness, health and longevity. Uh, it is an extremely high stress lifestyle. So, you know, I've had a conversation with my cardiologist, uh, recently, and he's, he said there's kind of a, you know, we see the same pattern over and over again, he's a concierge, so he's expensive, so he tends to have, you know, you know, affluent people, or someone who really needed a lot of help, like me, uh, um, and, you know, he sees people who, when they're focusing on their career, they're spiking cortisol, they're putting on weight, They're increasing their heart attack risk, right? Um, and then later, then there's a crisis and then they kind of deal with it. Um, and I think that I, I'm beginning, I'm beginning to think more and more about sort of the area under the curve of productivity. So if you're doing a little less. But you do it for 10 more year each year, but you do it for 10 more years. You're doing a lot more. Um, so, you know, taking a certain amount of time and setting it aside, uh, for, you know, exercise and other fitness activities and thinking about, you know, About those sorts of things is something. So I kind of listened to podcasts in that zone. Like say, for instance, Peter Atiyah or Dr. Peter Atiyah or some of
Jason:Okay. Good.
Jerry:So, uh, I think that's an underutilized, I, you know, it's almost like you can, you can only be successful in one thing. You think if you're going to focus on your career, you can't focus on the other thing. Uh, and, uh, I think you can do both and probably get more. career advancement, you know, by Keeping an edge longer,
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:Because, you know, as you think about it, think about let's say somebody's in their forties or fifties. Um, and so their middle management, they've learned a lot, right? Um, but also the energy starts to run down a little bit and the cognitive edge can start to get blunted. But imagine if that didn't happen. Imagine if you had your 30 year old brain with your 55 year old knowledge base. Um, and I think that's doable, you know, to some degree, you know, with exercise and fasting and, you know, focusing on nutrition. Uh, so I think there's an edge there. I think there's, uh, maybe like a five IQ point edge. And, uh, if you're, um, if you're, if you're staying on top of
Jason:Well, and
Jerry:I, I've been focusing on that. I, that's kind of, most of my podcast listening is probably that right now.
Jason:No, I, I mean, a couple of years ago, I moved into the role I'm in now and came out of a, uh, a lot more stressful, a lot more reactive roles that I had been in a couple, a couple of them and back to back. And when I moved into the role I am now, uh, I lost a bunch of weight. I lost like 40 pounds, my resting heart rate, you know, thanks to Apple watch stuff. You don't even think about. And I was months into the job. And I was, because I'm a data guy, I'm looking at some charts and graphs one night on my health app and I'm like, my resting heart rate has dropped, like, I don't remember what it was, but from like 80 to 60 or 65 in the three or four months that I took this job. And what I'll say, going back to your point, is that I feel way more focused and sharp now, a lot more proactive in how I spend my time and how I'm thinking through my work. You know, now I'm thinking about next year, the year after, what's our, what's our vision? Where are we moving towards and not, you know, in past roles where it's, I'm going to wake up and I'm going to think I'm going to buy, have about a one hour time horizon today all day. And then I'm gonna come home and go to bed and do it again. I'm going to eat like crap. I'm not going to go to the gym. And you're totally stressed out. I think just a mental exhaustion and. the stress, the cortisone or whatever it is, it's in your brain and you're not going out and running on or getting on the elliptical and burning that off. It just clouds your, it clouds your thinking. In my experience, it's just absolutely clouded my thinking. Whereas now I feel that I am able to think a lot clearer and make a lot better decisions because it's really, it's really just a physical, um, mindset, you know, what I've done health wise. So,
Jerry:So you're not stealing from your career. I mean, if you're fanatical about it, you probably are right. But if you are, if, if you're doing, you know, um, if you're doing exercise in some kind of diligent way. Um, you're not stealing from your career, uh, you're, you're helping it, um, now I'm not saying go out and there was a time when I was doing like 90 minutes a day of cardio. Well, I was stealing from my career, right? Um, but you don't have to do that, right? Um, so, you know, some weightlifting, some sprinting, you know, some intervals or something like that. You can do that in a short, you know, my workout, I do this, my wife and I do sprints. That's like a 20 minute workout, then 15 minutes of weight training, 35 minutes, you know, and we're wiped out,
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:right? Couple times a week, or whatever, uh, so you're taking an hour away from your work, but you're not. You're making every other hour more
Jason:Exactly. Well, like that's exactly right. When you are at work, it's a little far more productive. Yeah. I might, you know, my, a good week, a good week for me, uh, is three times at the gym and I'm 20 minutes on the elliptical, get my heart rate up. And then the rest of that hour is a weight training. And if I'm doing that even three times a week, it's, yeah, it's. Huge, huge, uh, game changer mentally. Just the mental focus as well as how you feel. And again, you and I both have grandchildren now, right? So I'd like to go out and play in the yard with them a little bit and not be totally exhausted. Can't keep up with them. So
Jerry:Yeah. And sometimes I've gotten the sense. I read a blog once where someone, um, in, uh, was writing for a theological, um, uh, website and he was talking about fitness and he felt like he needed to, there's like three paragraphs of, I'm not saying that the body is more important than the soul. And I'm not saying blah, blah, blah. And it's like he had to sort of overcome some kind of objection, right? Like, That's something there's, there's something wrong with that health focus. And I would really love to see Christian culture shift so that it, instead of like, you have to explain yourself if you're trying to be healthier and live longer, because that's worldly. Um, as, as opposed to that's sort of a default culture of excellence and glory in God, glorifying God and
Jason:Yeah. Yeah.
Jerry:right? So what if, what if we have a culture of excellence? What, what if the basic. Baseline expectation is that you're a follower of Jesus. What does the gospel say? He does all things well. What if what if the basic expectation is that in every area of your life you're improving to glorify
Jason:Yep.
Jerry:That's not shaming somebody, you know, because everybody has areas where they're going to fall behind. So if somebody's not fed It's just saying start out, you know, just set to be the best you can be in every area in your career, in your family life. And it's like, church is okay with you saying it's okay to be good in your family life. They're all right with that, right? Um, you know, like, you know, we just had Mother's Day, which is the highest, you know, that's the highest, um, attendance. Church Sunday of the year. So you don't have to convince church world that it's important to focus on family, but you seem to have to convince church world that it's okay to be good at your career
Jason:you do. Yeah.
Jerry:or that, or that it's okay to, you know, lift weights and get strong and, and to watch your diet and try to, you know, live a long life or to read books and try to grow intellectually. I think we should, we should be striving for excellence in all things. And that's spiritual. That's a spiritual thing. Being good at your job is spiritual. Um, working on being healthy is spiritual. Uh, and yes, being a husband, father, grandparent, that's spiritual. We already know that already. Being a, you know, being a good church member or clergy, yes, that, that's spiritual. But we already know that's spiritual already. What we have to do is maybe get to the point where we see all those other things as spiritual and not in competition. And this is a point that David makes. This work life balance thing that people say is really weird because work Is half of life at
Jason:Yes.
Jerry:So like, you don't say family life balance, you don't say church life balance, right? But somehow work has to earn its place at the table with the rest of life. So you work and then you do life, you know, so work isn't part of life then. That's a very
Jason:Well, and I think, I think that the mindset that's crept in, and it goes back to what I said earlier, where it's. work is only a, uh, uh, necessary evil to earn some money to give to the church to support your family and then get out of there as soon as you can. And then that leads to a lack of excellence at work because it's not even a good thing. It's an evil thing. And if I didn't have to do it, I wouldn't have to. I mean, I think that that mindset has gone from our cultural American domain into, into the church. And you wrote about it in that recent article. You talked about, you know, we're going to work later. We're working less. We're retiring earlier because it works like, no, no, no, no. We, we want to try to get out of it. The more I've read, like David Bonson's book, uh, Jordan Rainer put one out called the Sacredness of Secular Work earlier this year. So reading these books and sharpening my own thinking, and I think into more of a biblical mindset of work, then I start hearing the conversations around me, outside of the church, at work, inside of the church at times too, and I think, no, this is really ingrained in our language even. You know, that we celebrate early retirement. We celebrate not working, like getting out of work early, leaving early, working less hours. Let's have, can we have a, you know, three day work week, a four day work week. And, uh, yeah, it's, uh, it's like, it's the evil to be avoided versus, uh, this is, I love to go work. I love it. I love to go and create and make and fix and repair and build relationships and build teams. So anyways.
Jerry:you know, how many commercials for, you know, financial advisors are, you're going to retire and, you know, run a vineyard or something like that, or, I mean, is that the goal to have a 20 year hobby vacation at the end? If you were good at your job, if you're good at your job, you take from the world. If you, if you're good at, if you're very good at your job and you stop it early, you've taken something very valuable
Jason:Yeah. Yeah. David talks about that in his book, right? Like all the people who are retiring early and we miss out the generations that miss out on that knowledge and experience and training and mentorship.
Jerry:And I think in the church conversation, we've kind of gotten maybe a little bit past the idea that secular work is bad where, I mean, uh, but still you get the cookie for the churchy stuff. Right? So, Hey, Sunday school teachers, you know, stand up if you're a Sunday school teacher. Right. Or if you run a small group, stand up, you know, that they should, they should be honored, but how many times if you're an employer, stand up, uh, if you've been at your job for 40 years, faithfully doing that job, stand up, um, you know, we, uh, if you, if you got a promotion recently, Stan, I do, we should, that should, that, that should be happening every day. As much as, oh, so and so's going to seminary and has decided to become a pastor or a missionary. And then a wave of applause, that's great. But, excuse me, who's paying for that missionary salary?
Jason:Yeah. Now, one of the things.
Jerry:the payroll person.
Jason:of the things that, uh, I mentioned Jordan Rainer on it. Do you know who Jordan Rainer is? If you, so does a lot of faith and work, uh, content writing. Uh, he's got a podcast. Love him. Great guy, great brother in Christ. He, he tells a story about being at a youth, uh, I think a youth conference he was speaking at and he says, uh, if I get the story, right, I think I got it right. But he says, you know, normally you're like, they'll say, Hey, raise your hand. If you're feel called to missions, if you feel called to the pastorate and he's like, I'm going to start off saying raise your hand if you feel called to go into marketing, to go into business, to go into, and people start standing up. And it's like, those are all callings that God is, if you're a believer and you're going to do that, those are sacred callings. Yes, we, we absolutely need to honor, love, support our pastors and our missionaries. But to your point, there's not, all of us are called to do that and shouldn't be and can't be. And we need to look at our vocations as, As a calling and more than a mission, more than even a mission field to go in. And I, I see value in my work because I can go share the gospel and I can, but this is a point that Jordan makes 99. 5 or 8 percent of your time. You're not sharing the gospel. Now, when you get to praise the Lord, and if you're doing your work, well, people may respect you enough to listen to you. But the vast majority of the time, you're just doing your work and we are called to do it with excellence and do it to the absolute best of our ability. And glorify God through that doing that work that way. So
Jerry:And if it, and if it's a calling, it's displeasing to God to not follow it.
Jason:yeah.
Jerry:So we read the story of Jonah, who was called to be a missionary, and he pulled back from his
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:um, and terrible things happened. Well, what if your calling is manufacturing, and you pull back? You're like Jonah, not doing what he's called to do. Um, and woe be to the religious leader. Who tells, who somehow signals to somebody who is called to work in manufacturing that they
Jason:Yeah, I've been in 25, 24 years. I've been asked twice about, you know, have you thought about going into full time ministry? And both times, praise the Lord, I've been like, absolutely not. Nope. I'll serve. I serve as the elder. I'll lead clubs, groups, VBS. I'm there. I'm there, but absolutely not. And I think it would be a disaster because that's not what God's called me for or wired me for at all. And yeah, I think that people make that mistake. So because it's, Seeing as what must be the best thing and it's not for everybody. It's not the right thing for everybody. Hey, another quick question on leadership for those who are maybe earlier in their journey, uh, in their career, Jerry, what, what would be advice if you came, if someone came to you, even maybe one of your kids or somebody, um, that, you know, who's younger and looks up to you as a mentor and said, I have been given my first promotion as a supervisor, team leader, manager, something like that. What advice would you give them on how to approach that, uh, that leadership position in general without knowing specifics on what the role would be, but in general, how would you, uh, direct them to start off on the right foot as a leader?
Jerry:Uh, write things down. I mean, honestly, I've seen, I've seen so many people fail, uh, sort of like early in their leadership career. Uh, where, because they simply just don't write things down. I know that sounds like so, you know, elementary, but I've seen it over and over again. Yeah. Um, and I don't, I don't know, it's partly an age at a certain age when, when you're young, your executive function hasn't really grown that much. So I've noticed that for young people, they can struggle if you, if they have five things to do, they, they, um, we put it this way, wait, you're doing a thing and that's working, but you're also managing yourself now. So you have to kind of get up above yourself. And say, okay Jerry, you just did item number one, when you're done with item number one, it's time to do item number two. And the ability to get up above, like to get out of Lineland and up above that. I think doesn't really happen for people unless they write things down. Now, you can, I mean, you can use software, you can type it, you know, in Microsoft to do or project or something like that, or however your neurology works. The other thing is, maybe this is something, different people have different challenges. I, sometimes young men come into a situation and they've been given a chance at leadership and they think they really deserve it finally. They're in charge. And so they're not listening. They just take charge, right? As opposed to doing a lot of information gathering. So, I would say if you're young and you're in a position of new leadership authority, do a lot of information
Jason:Yeah.
Jerry:Um, and there are people, probably people, there are people you're leading who probably know more than you
Jason:Guaranteed.
Jerry:Just because you're the leader doesn't mean you know the most. It might be somebody likes you, or it might be because you have energy, or it might be because you have potential. It doesn't mean you have the most
Jason:Yeah. You don't probably most likely you don't.
Jerry:right? And there could be somebody who knows a lot more than you do. And they just don't want, they don't want a promotion. They like their life the way it is. Right. Uh, so I, you know, I've mentioned the Rosemary's and Sally's or whatever, you know, she doesn't want to be the controller. She wants a 40 hour work week. Um, she doesn't want a 60 or 70 hour work week, but she knows more than the person above her on the org chart. So if you just got put up a rung on the org chart, Realize you probably don't know more than everybody below you and you certainly do not know more than everybody
Jason:Guaranteed. Yeah. I thought somebody tell, and if anyone who's listened to my podcast hears me say this all the time, I had this advice given to me a long time ago. Listen, learn, then lead. Take that approach, especially when you're new to a team or, you know, you come into an organization new. I think the other one I'll just hit on too, the writing things down. It made me think back when I was a first time supervisor and I had a mentor who was an older supervisor. And he, I remember he would take, we had a daily schedule and uh, about three pages usually. And he would fold that into three where to fit in your back pocket. And all day long we're walking around the plant. If someone asked him about something, typically our employees, our team members, he'd write it down. And at the end of the day, everything on that sheet was either crossed off as he had followed up with them and he checked on this and checked on that. Or if not, it got transferred to tomorrow's. But everybody knew if Mark said he was going to do something, he did it. And I, to this day, I mean, I still, I carry most of my phone, but I have a notebook that I carry around. And if we're out in the shop or whatever, and somebody, If I say I'm going to do something, I write it down because I'll forget if not. And then my credibility trust is just gets eroded. So just, just for that reason alone, write it down. So you don't forget it.
Jerry:it's so obvious, but I've seen it violated so often,
Jason:You get people that just say, I saw, I saw it become a huge problem with team members because you tell them with good intentions. Yup. I'll check on that for you. Yup. I'll do that. Yup. I'll do that. And you do none of it or 90 percent of it you forget. And now everybody just thinks you're either a lazy or a liar or both. And that nobody you can't, you're not leading anybody cause they can't stand you.
Jerry:Yeah, I gave the commencement speech at my alma mater at Robert Morris And that was the first item that I mentioned I didn't do I didn't do anything uplifting. It was just here's what you got to do Uh, and the first one was do not dare ever show up to a meeting with your boss without a paper and pencil without a pad and pencil in your hand.
Jason:Yeah, that's true. Absolutely true. I, I, when my team does, when we, when we meet and I do that with my boss, And I'm 52 years old and I've been in leadership for a long time. But if I'm going to talk to, if I'm going to a meeting with my boss, I've got my notebook because I want to make darn sure. But even with people who are my say subordinates, you know, because it's just as important for me there that if they asked me to do something, I tell them I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. So super important. Uh, good.
Jerry:know, there's one other thing I want to mention that I just kind of occurred to me that we tried to instill in, in our family business, which is that if you've got a responsibility, you've got a, you've got a, you're a, you're a step in the process. Yeah. There's somebody just before you and there's somebody just after you take extra responsibility for the step just before and just after. In other words, don't just be responsible for your part. You are fully accountable for your part. But if, if there's something, don't just, if it's not a valid excuse, so and so didn't give me. The thing that I need to do something with talk to that person, like double check it same, like check after so that there's double coverage for each stage in the process because everybody is checking the step before them and they're checking the step after them. Um, related to that is something we call three point communication, which is, I guess we don't just call it that, but that's a common thing. So around here. If I, like, if I'm giving an assignment to somebody, they say it back to me and then I say it back to them. And we have so fewer misunderstandings. Like, hey, I need you to run this data on such and such, Chris. And Chris is saying, all right, you're saying I need to run the data on such and such. And it's like, that's right, Chris, you need to run the data on such and such. It gets said three
Jason:that's intense. That's good communication.
Jerry:to lock it in.
Jason:That is good. Yeah, though the process You talked about the process steps in manufacturing. We've tried to teach for me, you know This is probably goes back 15 years ago But we started to really try to teach people that they have internal customers their colleagues are their internal customers So think about that you're not Yeah, I know that Joe that does the next operation, whatever, you don't like them or this or that or the other thing, but he is your internal customer. And if you send him a bad part, he's going to, he gets to hold you accountable because he's your customer. And once you get that culture built in and they actually start treating each other that way, it changes. It changes everything. Um, I have a couple other questions for you before we wrap up Um, I would like to ask if you know of anybody else it would be a good guest on the podcast someone You know out in industry and leadership who can offer thoughts and advice on uh I'm leading and you know someone who's been doing it for a while. So good. What do you
Jerry:Let me think about that and get back to you because I don't want to like put someone on the spot publicly.
Jason:That's totally fair. Um, what would be the best way for people if they want to follow you, get in touch with you? They've listened today and thought this is a super fascinating guy, which I think so. How, what's the best way for them to stay in touch?
Jerry:Um, I'm on social media. I, you know, I try to share what I'm doing out there, uh, and interact with people. Social media can become addictive and distracting. Um, I find it to be a value add, um, but that's because I block everything that isn't. So I mean, if I'm, if there's no, if an argument is developing with somebody, if it's like that's not productive, just hit the block button, only talk to people with whom it's productive. Uh, so I'm on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. I'd say probably the highest quality interaction is on LinkedIn by its very nature. Um, you know, that LinkedIn doesn't seem to run on conflict, whereas Facebook and
Jason:Twitter. Twitter is like the other extreme, right? That's the fuel. That's the fuel for that engine.
Jerry:Now, a certain amount of my job is conflict, like if we're holding a company accountable, you know, so I'll use Twitter as a tool in that particular case. That heat can, can, you know, serve, it can be a tool. Right? Uh, as a fallback, right? You don't start out with conflict. Uh, so I'm easy to find. Just spell it right. B O W I E R, Boyer, Bowyer, think of it that way. Uh, and, um, yeah, go ahead and send me a connect or, uh, you know, a friend or, uh, connect, um, or follow me on Twitter and be part of the
Jason:great. No, and I'll link to those in the, uh, in the show notes. So we'll do the, we do audio and then also have YouTube, uh, channel. I see you do too for your podcast. You've got a podcast. We'll link to all that. So people can check you out and follow and be a part of what you're doing and learn from you. So, Hey, I thank you for your time. I know you're super busy. Uh, if you think of someone that could be a guest, please connect me. That's, that's how I keep this thing going. So I appreciate your time today, brother, and thank you for what you're doing.
Jerry:appreciate, appreciate, uh, your time. Thank
Jason:All right, man. Thank you And thank you for once again, joining me. As we meet another leader, striving to honor Christ in their work. Please take a moment to rate the show and subscribe to our YouTube channel until next time I pray, the Lord will bless your work for his glory.
