How Leaders Think with Kenny Lange

Justin McCorkle [00:00:00]:
I want to see people that don't have actually any concern about kingdom business. They're not spiritually minded people. I want to see them trying to find kingdom minded businesses to invest in because they see the performances there. To me, it's another way of proving the supremacy of God's way of doing things.

Kenny Lange [00:00:23]:
Welcome to the how leaders think podcast, the show that transforms you by renewing your mind and giving you new ways to think. I am your host, Kenny Lang, and with me today is the Justin McCorkle. He is an executive strategy coach and he is helping a ton of people and we're going to find out a little bit more soon about how that works, but a little background on him. Justin has nearly 20 years of leadership experience, has advised through multiple m and A. That's mergers and acquisitions transactions, which is no small feat. He's helped launch startups and been involved in capital raises. And then he also, like me, loves serving purpose driven businesses. Welcome to the show, Justin.

Justin McCorkle [00:01:06]:
Thanks, Kenny. Great to be here.

Kenny Lange [00:01:08]:
I am excited to have this conversation. This feels like a part two. We're brainstorming a really weird podcast. We don't know if it'll make it to daylight, but the ideas are all there. So just take this as a sample. But all kidding aside, Justin, tell me what's on your mind.

Justin McCorkle [00:01:24]:
I think that we are witnessing a movement in the business community. It's becoming more than a sprinkle. I think at this point it's kind of becoming a little bit of an avalanche of businesses moving toward purpose. And I think that it started out with, we need to be better people, we need to be better humans, we need to care about things. And this will inspire employees as well if we can set purpose and all that kind of stuff for our organization. But we're at the point now to where it's being figured out that this is the most profitable way to do business. And there are some amazing funds that are outperforming the market in tremendous ways and they're doing it all on the back of purpose driven business. And my particular interest is with kingdom minded businesses.

Justin McCorkle [00:02:05]:
So I'm especially interested in businesses that are trying to make an impact for christian causes. And I just see this as the beginning. I think there is so much farther to go, but I am very much of the opinion that this is the new norm that is coming.

Kenny Lange [00:02:21]:
I love that. And as a fellow believer, fellow coach, all those things that you say really excite me because I think that there is a tremendous upside. But with that being, this is the new shift the new idea. What has been the prevailing wisdom in the marketplace about the way to build a lasting, successful, successful, profitable business? What are we shifting from? If you had to describe it, Clay.

Justin McCorkle [00:02:49]:
I would take it back to the Murray Rothbard type of thinking from the 1970s, the shareholder privacy mindset, where the way you build a good business is to maximize the value for your investors. Now, obviously, from a capitalistic perspective, you have to be working to maximize value for your investors. I'm not taking away from the importance of bringing returns to your investors at all, but it used to be the thinking that, I mean, that's what business exists to do. You exist to bring more money to the people that initially put money into the business or the people that are currently investing into the business. They're expecting more and more returns. And so if you want to be a great business, the way you're a great business is to bring the most money back to your investors. And that, I think, has just kind of run its course. I think that it wore people out.

Justin McCorkle [00:03:40]:
I think that we all in all are kind of tired of it as generational shifts that are taking places. The boomers are aging out of the market. I saw that by 2025, 70% of people in the workplace will be millennials. So we're looking at such a generational shift, and our generation, I say our. I am the oldest of the millennials right there. You can barely call me a millennial. I'm on the line. But there has certainly been a big move that has taken place in the mindset as this generation has come up.

Justin McCorkle [00:04:12]:
And overall, the millennial want something more out of business. But I think that what they accidentally stumbled on through pushing in that, is that this is actually a lot more profitable. We can build better organizations, we can dive more into leadership, understand it better, and then at the end of the day, longer term, it ends up being the most profitable way to do business that we've ever seen.

Kenny Lange [00:04:32]:
The idea that being purpose, it feels like a blinding flash of the obvious, right? Like, well, yeah, your business has to have a purpose. It sounds like. I mean, purpose has been there, but it sounds like the purpose is shifting, like you said, from shareholder return on investment and priority to something that might be a bit bigger or more noble. Is that fair to say?

Justin McCorkle [00:04:58]:
Yeah, I think it's fair to say. And really, the subset of this movement will kind of define what bigger means in that context, I think of conscious capitalism. I've been very involved with the Dallas conscious capitalism movement, but there's conscious capitalist groups all over the country. And one of the main components of conscious capitalism is the idea of stakeholder primacy. They move that from shareholder to stakeholder. And you go through an exercise to identify who all of your stakeholders are in the organization. It's not just your investors, it's your employees are stakeholders in the organization. Your community is a stakeholder in the organization.

Justin McCorkle [00:05:37]:
For some of these groups, the environment, they identify the environment as a stakeholder and so they're trying to do business in really green ways. So that's an example of the same type of thinking. It's just that there's some variation in exactly how that looks within each organization. And that's great. I'm a big fan. Like I said, I've been very involved. I'm a big fan of conscious capitalism. Out of that, then you saw the movement for B corporations.

Justin McCorkle [00:06:02]:
B Corps are blowing up right now. If you compare, just three years ago, I want to say it was about three years ago, there were only 1000 B Corps certified on the planet, and now there are hundreds of them just around DFW. You have a tremendous growth in B Corp certification going on. And people ask me, what is B Corp? To me, B Corp certification is essentially a certification to say that you are a conscious capitalist organization. To me, they are very intertwined. They go hand in hand together philosophically. There are a number of things in the B Corp certification that bring to light some of that stuff that I just mentioned, like environmental responsibility, all those types of things that to me just screams conscious capitalism. So, yeah, I mean, I really like it.

Justin McCorkle [00:06:47]:
I think it's great if organizations go that way. I know one individual who really points to the hockey stick in his organization as when they went through B Corp certification, it just changed the game because it made them double down on how they were going to ensure their employees were being treated, the benefits that they were receiving and all that kind of stuff. And he said that it's like right there, the company turned and took off. So that's great. Like I said, I'm particularly passionate about team to minded businesses and that can look very different as well. I'm working with organizations that want to give to christian philanthropies. So they're doing their own thing in their own industries, but they're building into the DNA of the organization that this is what we're working toward. We want to give this percentage away or we want to give this tangible dollar amount away.

Justin McCorkle [00:07:36]:
That's only going to come if we grow a certain amount. There are others that are trying to fund missionary groups and things of that nature. So, I mean, they all put their own spin on it, but they're all saying our business exists for a greater purpose, and we have to serve a number of stakeholders in order to accomplish that purpose.

Kenny Lange [00:07:55]:
Gotcha. Yeah, just, just expand the focus, which, again, I'm a huge fan of. I love it, because I do think that business can be a force for good in our communities as well as globally and wherever they choose to send their, their profits. I have a couple of businesses that have either declared, like, we're going to be mission driven, purpose driven. I had a CEO write up a letter the night before we were running their annual sessions and made it explicitly clear. This is like, yes, we have to get stuff done. We need to sell things. We got to keep the operations going.

Kenny Lange [00:08:29]:
But do not mistake that for our primary purpose. We have a mission to do good work with good people and make this a great place to work. That is our mission, and that comes first. Just to make sure everybody was clear, which I thought was excellent of him, just leadership being clear. But to declare that because he's in a very high driven, like, churning things out, high turnover type business, but to stake his claim there, I think is him making a distinction. And it's not just so that he can say, oh, we're a nice place to work, like, he's not gaming the system. Others have chosen to have for profit businesses, but they want to weave their christian values into the business, into the fabric. To say, we believe this is also, like, the best way to treat people or to run an organization, but they're unsure of, like, how do we do that? Besides, like, we put a Bible verse on the website.

Kenny Lange [00:09:30]:
Like, does that, does that qualify? So I'm excited to hear that you're, you're working in those realms. I was excited when you first mentioned that you were coming around to system in soul, because I think it just lines up so well and aligns for those organizations should they choose to engage with one of us, to say, hey, we want to bring this more into our central DNA and not just be a thing. We say, you have a lot of experience in private equity, venture capital, things like that. How does that blend in with, say, the faith driven entrepreneur, faith driven investor, like, those are some of the largest names in terms of blending faith in business together. How does your focus blend with that? Does, is it a similar viewpoint? Is it different if some of our listeners are really familiar with their stance and their focus?

Justin McCorkle [00:10:21]:
Well, I think that the viewpoint is really similar. I mean, some of the individuals that founded faith driven entrepreneur were the same ones that were involved in launching Sovereign's capital. Sovereigns capital, to me, is just a banner example of what can be done in the market. They're outperforming the market handsomely right now. And one of the things that I put on my LinkedIn profile, if you were to go look at that, is I say that I'm passionate about making kingdom businesses disproportionately more profitable than any other opportunity in the marketplace. Ultimately, my mindset is I would love to see, call it faithless dollars chasing faith opportunities there. I want to see people that don't have actually any concern about kingdom business. They don't care.

Justin McCorkle [00:11:03]:
They're not spiritually minded people. Whatever else, I want to see them trying to find kingdom minded businesses to invest in because they see the performances there. To me, it's another way of proving the supremacy of God's way of doing things. So I think you're kind of proving the gospel in a different manner. So. And, you know, the truth is most people aren't walking into churches that are curious about faith these days. They're looking at our lives. They're looking at business leaders that say they're christians.

Justin McCorkle [00:11:31]:
They're looking at organizations. They're basically forming their view of Christianity in the marketplace rather than in the churches. So I think we have a great opportunity to influence for real, ultimate, eternal good through those market forces. But going back to your, your question, the thought process, I think, is the same with faith driven investor. My work is what is different. Obviously, you've got individuals in those groups, which I attend those groups when I can and try to network and do those types of things. But you have entrepreneurs in all different types of industries and everything else. My work is to bring in.

Justin McCorkle [00:12:06]:
Like you said, I'm affiliated with system and soul. So that is the platform that I use as the foundation a lot of times. And then I help those organizations to bend that even more toward how do we make a kingdom impact with what we're doing? And that can come out in a lot of different ways. You mentioned, do we just put scripture up on the wall and, hey, now we're done? You know, I think that it's a lot deeper than that. It's, it's like, like, how do we build conflict resolution policies inside our organizations using Scripture as the foundation for it? And is that even legal? It is absolutely legal to do, and there are certainly ways to do it. And just the other day, I was having a conversation with a group of executives that were talking about their difficulties with Gen Z in the workplace. And one of the things that they were particularly commenting on was they don't know how to do conflict resolution. Now, these are generalist statements which you know are not true.

Justin McCorkle [00:12:57]:
There are plenty of Gen Z that know how to do conflict resolution and stuff, but people just say these things is like a group summary, which there's probably some validity to. And I said, well, you think about this then. If you build a conflict resolution policy for your organization that's based on Matthew 18, God's word, this is what you, this is how you resolve conflict in scripture, then you're not just doing another corporate HR policy that these people have to live with while they're in your organization. You're actually teaching them how to have better lives through corporate policy. So you've just done a much bigger thing in your business than written a new HR policy. You've actually tried to bring real value, lifelong value, to your employees by instilling into the DNA of the organization what God's word has to say about something like conflict. Wow. You can do the same thing then with a number of other topics in the business.

Justin McCorkle [00:13:50]:
That's just an example. And yeah, that's essentially what I'm trying to encourage them to do through our work with the senior leaders.

Kenny Lange [00:13:58]:
I love that. I think that's a wonderful perspective. It reminds me of a clip from Benj Miller. He put it out on his LinkedIn recently. He was interviewed and he said, in his view, and binge can text me as he thinks if I get his quote wrong. But he wouldn't do that, I don't think. But he said that there are essentially, there are two different types of businesses. There are those that are using their people to build a business and others that are using their business to build their people.

Kenny Lange [00:14:33]:
And I hear what you are describing as the latter, that it's an opportunity to really build your people. And if you wanted to mention another more faith driven organization, Chick fil A Dan Cathy is famous for saying that our employees are our first customer, and if we take care of them, they're going to take care of our customers, which takes care of the business. And it's a little hard to argue with that. Getting back to another point you made, which is something I was thinking about this morning, you and I have the shared affinity for businesses moving past just being purposeful or purpose driven, but actually having that outsized performance. Right. And the word that comes to mind is undeniable. Like there's, you can't reinterpret the performance by any perspective. It's just, it's good performance.

Kenny Lange [00:15:29]:
They're hitting all the growth indicators, they're hitting all the KPI's. This is where even if you have no faith orientation, this is the best bet for you to make if you're buying a company, if you're investing in a company, if you're buying stock in a publicly traded company, because the, by all accounts their performance is undeniable. And it sounds like you want to help more of those companies reach that place.

Justin McCorkle [00:15:55]:
Yes, I want this to be, I love that, that way of looking at it because that's exactly right. I want it to be undeniable that whatever metric you want to use to come into this organization, you're gonna find it to be a really strong organization and then you're going to be turned to how to get to be so strong. Was it, oh, such wise leadership. Did they just have this amazing CEO? Did they have this amazing executive team? Did they have this amazing coach that was working with them? And the answer to all of those things we want to be? No, no. The reason this is an amazing organization is because we brought eternal principles into the organization. We have built our HR policy for conflict resolution not off of the wisdom of some man or woman that is an HR leader, but rather we looked back a couple thousand years and said, how does God tell us to resolve conflict among ourselves and how do we build a corporate policy that reflects that? You can even look at it in the little stuff like how do we treat our, our vendors? It's not a question of what can we get away with legally. Well, I know that if I write this term into the contract that they're going to give me a grace period of this many days beyond when it said it was due, right? So it's like, oh, due immediately. But what that really means is, oh, there's at least a month before they'll start sending me emails on when you're going to start paying this thing.

Justin McCorkle [00:17:18]:
And then, you know, it's so much of a hassle to go to court, we can probably send that out a couple of months. And you have companies that live in this mindset of scarcity where I can just take and take and take to a set of limit and no one wants to do business with those people. But what if we approached that differently and said, what if we did unto others as we would have them do unto us? I love getting my invoices paid immediately.

Kenny Lange [00:17:40]:
Amen.

Justin McCorkle [00:17:42]:
I love it. And I'm blessed at this point with usually clients that pay those invoices immediately. It blew my mind, I have to say. I mean, I've come out of an organization where we were having to fight for invoices to be paid a lot of times and then building the practice that I have right now. It blew my mind when I first started sending invoices out and they were being paid the same day. And this can happen, but it's amazing, right? Their response. It makes you feel appreciated. It makes you feel valued.

Justin McCorkle [00:18:11]:
It makes you feel like you're giving great value. Look at what we can communicate by paying an invoice on time. So what if in our organizations, we said we should pay our invoices whenever possible, we should pay them immediately. We should certainly pay it within the terms that have been agreed upon. And it's not because we just, you know, manipulate or whatever else. It's because we think this is a value, this is a good thing to do, and it is an example of us doing unto others as we would have them do unto us.

Kenny Lange [00:18:40]:
Right? 100%. I'm in agreement with, people should pay their invoices on time, and it's just a good way to do business. But you bring some up to where instead of people dreading doing business with you, because maybe you do have the best product, maybe you do have the best service. Like it works, and you're using that as leverage for whatever reason. The way that you can really just start to supersede your, or transcend, I should say, your category, is not just by having the best product or service, but also having the best character and the best reputation of how you do business. Because to be honest, like, how you do anything is how you do everything has been something that was drilled into my head, right? Like, if you consistently show up late, if you are paying invoices not on time, if you're speaking rudely about somebody they're not around or anything like that. One example of this that has stuck with me was talking about faith driven organizations, but Ramsey solutions. And Dave talks about their hiring process, especially the VP executive level.

Kenny Lange [00:19:55]:
It has quite a few steps. He's actually said, we've had to cut back because we got told it was a little too extensive. But one of their last ones was a spouse dinner. And I was like, that seems weird, but what they were doing is, one they get them outside of the context of performance. Just see how does somebody act here compared to there? Like, you want to see who they authentically are, but they would watch how the person they were interviewing spoke to their spouse and there were some people who interviewed really, really well, but they were just mean or dismissive or something else that was negative towards their spouse. And they had made it through, like, all 1516 steps and tripped over the finish line because they said, if you're willing to treat this person who's the most important to you in your life this way, how are you going to treat our clients, our customers, our employees, our vendors? Right. Like, you got to come in and add to the culture we've established here and not subtract from in this one way that they defended it. And.

Kenny Lange [00:21:00]:
But I think paying invoices on time is a simple way to do that. Right? Like, there's hundreds of small ways that we can do that. How else or what are you seeing people do to just small things to incorporate this? Because I think sometimes if someone were to think like, oh, conscious capitalism, I'm going to go and read the book. It's a thick book, right? Like, I'm going to go and get my b corp certification and it's like I'm. That's going to happen tomorrow. No, no, it, no, it is nothing. It's not happening tomorrow. And we'll see if it can happen this year.

Kenny Lange [00:21:32]:
But, and so those can feel like very large things. What, a couple of things. What is the frame of mind or the perspective that you're seeing from these leaders that maybe a listener should be adopting and not doing this to gain the system? I don't want to say manipulate. I don't think some people intend to be that way, but it comes across as insincere or they think that they, it's either everything or it's absolutely nothing. Like we're either kingdom minded or we're, you know, a heathen, hedonistic place to work. How are you talking to leaders or hearing from leaders that inspire you or encourage you and how they're operating that they're seeing this as the long game? Because I have to imagine the mindset's very different.

Justin McCorkle [00:22:23]:
That's a great question. I mean, a lot of times when I'm meeting with leaders for the first time, I try to dig into, what do you want? I ask that question a lot. What do you actually want? You mentioned binge. I mean, his book renegades. He kind of gets into that entrepreneur mindset a lot. We build businesses because we want freedom, and then the business becomes our prison. And now we're really unhappy. So a lot of, both of us, our work is, I think, helping organizations that have been found or led to become team led but part of that journey is you've got to know what you want as an individual, and then you've got to be able to bring that to your leadership team and find out what we want.

Justin McCorkle [00:23:05]:
Because now it's, you know, it's a crucial conversation type of thing we're all pouring into our bucket of meaning. We're going to create this path together. The CEO certainly is essential to setting vision, to saying, here is what I'm doing, do it right. The CEO is that, you know, I like how Simon Sinek calls the CEO position should be the CVO, the chief vision officer. Because ultimately, CEO needs to set that vision. I don't know if this is the best answer to your question, but what I really want to say is, before you do anything, step away from everything and pray. Just you've got to get clarity in your mind about what you're being called to do. And I don't think that everyone should do the same thing.

Justin McCorkle [00:23:48]:
I don't think every business should look the same. I don't think you should pursue the idea of even being a kingdom minded business in the same way as everyone else. It is very individualistic. You are trying to put the DNA of the word throughout the organization, but that doesn't happen overnight. And there's this old preacher that I knew. I was a preacher for twelve years, and there was this old preacher that I knew who used to say that preaching is the gospel with personality. And what he meant by that is that you've got the same word, but you've got these different individuals stand up that speak that word and it comes out differently because they have different personalities. So preaching is the gospel personality.

Justin McCorkle [00:24:31]:
And, you know, it's really the same way when it comes to being that visionary leader of an organization. It doesn't matter if you're a small organization, you got just a couple people on your teams, or if you are a multinational corporation, it's very much a thing that if you're in that visionary role and you're going to be calling the organization as a whole into a greater vision and you're going to be trying to bring the word into the organization, you better get real clear on what it is God wants you to do because it is a journey and there are infinite number of ways to approach this, and you're really only going to be judged with how well you did what you could do. So I don't. I don't know if that's a. I don't mean for that to be a cop out, but just going away and praying and asking, what should I do for your glory in my role? And then once you can get your mind wrapped around what you want and what God is calling you to, then you can work with someone like me or with other people on your team or whatever else to get some perspective on how to accomplish that.

Kenny Lange [00:25:46]:
It doesn't sound like a cop out, but I know for many of us who are that high drive or whether worker or achiever, entrepreneur, the notion of even sitting still and yes, in silence or meditating feels like our bodies might spontaneously combust. As a matter of fact, I went for a walk a little earlier and I was like, okay, I'll have my phone, maybe I'll just listen to the podcast or something. And I just remember this group of guys I was meeting with this morning. We're talking about it. It's like, no, no, no, resist the urge to make that productive time. And it was, it didn't take very long. Took me 20 minutes. I just walked around the neighborhood, but it got quiet and I got to pray and say some stuff.

Kenny Lange [00:26:29]:
And I was like, okay, well, number one, I didn't die, so that's good.

Justin McCorkle [00:26:33]:
Well, you know, I want to jump in on this because that's the reason that I said that this does not come easily for me. It is hard for me to do that, to step away and pray. I think that if it was easy for me to step away and pray about things, if I had just had this natural inclination to be a praying person all of my life or something like that, that I wouldn't even think to say that, I would just assume it. But it's actually really difficult for me to step away and pray. So that's become a purposeful thing for me now, just, just like you're describing here, not long ago I had a big project that I was working on, and there was this particular time that there was a meeting going on that I was not a part of, that Washington really essential to what was happening. So I went to this park nearby that has this really long trail on it that I was able to. I left everything in the car and forced myself to go for an hour long walk where I could not have my cell phone, could not have any distraction thing to actually pray for an hour. And it was, it was tough, but it was so amazing.

Justin McCorkle [00:27:42]:
Once I was able to really settle my mind in that and to have a conversation with God, I am working diligently to make it more normal. But the only way for me it works is to carve out that time and say, this is a distraction free time for prayer so that I can actually get clarity and entreat God for his service and favorite.

Kenny Lange [00:28:05]:
That's fantastic. I appreciate you sharing that. You know, I find a lot of people who advocate for things think a lot of times we think I was like, oh, well, that's easy for you to do. You be a pastor and you're doing this and you're talking about these things. It's fairly simple. Like, no, a lot of times, like you said, the things that we bring up are the things that we have to have either had to fight and discipline ourselves to do or achieve or something else. It didn't come easy or naturally because if it did, we probably wouldn't be talking about it. Like, let's just breathing, you know?

Justin McCorkle [00:28:40]:
Right.

Kenny Lange [00:28:41]:
If somebody is listening to this and they are all in on what you're talking about, like, yes, maybe they're even a young, young leader and like, I love this. There's bigger purpose. I want to be part of something bigger than myself or I want to start something that's bigger than me and I want to invite other people into it. What would you recommend that that leader do to take a step in the next 24 hours that would cost them little to no money? I know you recommended getaway pray. I think that that could be in that category. But is there anything maybe strategically in the practical that you might recommend?

Justin McCorkle [00:29:15]:
It might vary a little bit based on the individual, but ultimately. So if you want a really practical step to start in the next 24 hours, I'm going to say start building a personal mission statement. There are a lot of free activities. You can google online, free resources to help you do exercises. Because just saying write a personal mission statement, it's really, really hard and it will probably be not be very good at the end, but you can go through exercises to help you filter down and through what your core values are, what you value the most, and then get to that personal mission statement. And now you're talking about a leader. You said specifically like a young leader. So I'm.

Justin McCorkle [00:29:52]:
That's someone with influence, right? Leadership is influence. So when I say that, I know that that's not a practical step to take it to others. I'm saying that if you don't get real clarity on why you're doing what you're doing, what your values are, what your life's focus really should be, then you're going to run flat whenever you try to take that out to other people. So that prayer and then turning and working on your personal mission statement before you take any other steps. I think it's pretty key to actually being effective at leading others in this.

Kenny Lange [00:30:25]:
I love that. Lots of good takeaways there. Justin. Thank you so much for being a guest. Lots to explore here. There's even more I think we could have wandered into, but there's only so much time in the day, so maybe we'll do a part two. But if somebody wanted to know more about you, more about your work, where would you send them?

Justin McCorkle [00:30:43]:
Go to our website, leanleaders inc.com lean leadersinc.com. you can also catch me on LinkedIn. Happy to connect Justin McCorpel and even if you type it in, there's a 1776 at the end that will help you find my page. I'm a big freedom guy. So anyways, happy to connect on LinkedIn. Happy to have you email, reach out to the website and look forward to talk to you.

Kenny Lange [00:31:08]:
Well, awesome. Well, we'll link all of that up in the show notes. So go visit, send them a connection request, say hi, let them know what you took away, or ask them any questions. Justin really is a give first, help first sort of individual, so I can attest to that. For all of you out there listening, if you did get something out of today's episode, I would greatly appreciate a like share rate review. However, you can get this into the hands and ears and eyeballs of someone else. It is a cost free way to improve another person's life. It's easy to pay it forward.

Kenny Lange [00:31:44]:
And uh, all of those actions help get more attention in the algorithms and all of that stuff so that we get more visibility and we can help more people. Because at the end of the day, this podcast is not to help me get rich, is to help more leaders think differently so that they can make the impact that, as Justin was talking about, that they are designed and wired to do. But until next time, think differently. You'll lead differently. We'll see ya.