Leading at the Speed of Change

0:01 Hello, my name is Van Clements, and I'm standing here in Kansas City, Kansas, with the extraordinary storyteller, pastor, leader, speaker, my father-in-law, Dick Foth. And we're here to announce to you that the book, the third volume of the story series is out, Stories of Faith and Friendship. And we're excited about it. You know, there was a musical years ago called Everything's Up to Date in Kansas City. And here we are in this up-to-date place. We've got trains in the background. We've got all this stuff going. We have a podcast upcoming here in just a moment. Video podcast. Vlog, I guess is what you call him. Coming up in a moment with a good friend by the name of Mike Comer.

0:42 You knew Mike Comer when you were a young college relations director at a small college. And he showed up. Tell me just your impression of Mike. And then people will get to hear him. Mike is happy. Mike is interested. He is smart. I remember he used to come into my office with a blank piece of paper in his hand, but I didn't know it was blank. And I said, what are you doing? He goes, nothing. And I said, well, where are your head? He goes, actually, I just carry a blank piece of paper around so that people think I'm doing something. And that's Mike. He just loves to socialize, but he is a smart, strong person. I don't know if he's still carrying a piece of paper around, but he has done a ton of stuff and we're going to meet him right now.

1:35 Well, hello, friends. This is Dick Foth. One more time with Stories from the Road. And I'm actually doing this not just with audio, but with video. And should this come out as a vlog, you will see my friend Mike, who's looking very put together back there on the East Coast. And I'm here looking like somebody did something to my face because they just did something to my face this morning. So I apologize for the little patch on my face from a biopsy that was done. But... Mike Comer, how on earth are you? I am doing great, Dick, and it's always great to talk with you. I'm looking forward to our conversation. Thank you. And I'm speaking to you from, you are in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

2:20 Was that where you were born? No, I was originally born in Virginia, about two hours outside of Washington, D.C. This is my 33rd year in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. You have some connection with Winston-Salem, I know. I do. Lived here for a short time before you were in Washington, D.C., I believe. That's right. Ruth liked our few months in Winston because she could go antiquing and we could go over to, I think it's Ashboro, to Jed's Barbecue and sweet tea and banana pudding or something. I don't know. I can't remember. So, Mike, I'm so grateful that you came on today because you live in a world that's pretty different from mine in a number of ways.

3:07 We have overlap, but there's quite a bit of difference. So, Mike. In your memory, because your memory is better than mine at this point, when and where and why did we first meet? So, Dick, we connected 35 years ago, 1990, 1991. You were the president at Bethany College in San Cruz, California. Yeah. I was working on K Street in Washington, D.C., and through a variety of different events we can talk about, I was invited to Bethany College to expand and grow and help create a business program there 35 years ago.

3:51 And that's where we first met. And you were... Young and boyish, and you're still young and boyish. I look like I got hit by a truck. Yeah, let's just say I had more hair and darker hair and less weight, right? I was 28 years old, and I was showing up in California wanting to do something different than what I was doing at that point. because you had been working for a major company and were being recruited for a major company. And I don't think we paid you as much as they were gonna pay you, did we? So it was one of those pivotal moments in your life when you look back and you say there are these various roads that you can take, and taking those roads will lead to a different journey.

4:43 And when I look back now in 35 years, I see that there's some real providence in that road that I took. But I was working for Arthur Anderson and Company. At the time, it was the... largest accounting and consulting firm. I wasn't an accountant. I was on the consulting side. And we had started a new division called Change Management. Now, this is the 1980s. And so there's a lot of process change, a lot of business change, and particularly what we call technology assimilation. People are going from paper-based work to new computers, and they're new for many people. And how do you help people So psychologically and emotionally change, but also look at the process, look at the systems and look at the mindsets and get there.

5:29 And that involved communication plans. It involved one-on-one counseling in some ways and a lot of training that I did as well in that time frame. So you came to us. We were in change as just a small college. I remember somebody gave me a pretty fancy computer that had this thing called a mouse, and you charged it by putting it in the mouse house. And this was a very wealthy guy from Silicon Valley. He said, you need to understand that you don't need this for your small college. All you need is a Chevy, and I'm giving you a Maserati. Right. So, yeah, go ahead. I was going to say it was very interesting because at that point in my life, I was 28 years old.

6:10 I was working all the time. And I had this pivotal moment where I was called the manager of the Southeast for Anderson Consulting. I was going from client to client to client. And I woke up one day in a hotel room and I couldn't remember what city I was in or who I was supposed to meet with. It's as if my mind went blank. Now, that happens to me all the time at 64. But now I pick up my phone and I know where I'm supposed to be and what the hotel is. But back then we didn't have the phone. It was all written down somewhere, right? We had maps that we looked at. And I thought, you know, I'm 28 years old.

6:51 I'm traveling all the time. I would fly out on a Friday. I would get caught up on Saturday. I'd leave Sunday night. I'd go to the next place. This was my third day, my third city. And I woke up and I'm not sure where I'm supposed to be that day. And at the same time... In the firms like Anderson, Arthur Anderson, Anderson Consulting, it's now called Accenture, there was this up or out program, which means if you were not making partner in about five or six years, then it was time to move on. And partners had to sell a lot of work and they had to constantly bring in new business. And that wasn't my forte or what I was great at. So all those factors came together.

7:32 And I woke up that day and I thought, I'm going to do something new. mission-driven. I'm going to have always been my whole life a person of faith, and that's where I was brought up in and was important to me. And so there was this, you know, today we'd use a website, but back then it was actually a newsletter you subscribed to called Interchristo. And Interchristo had all these listings about we're looking for an accountant that, you know, In Tanzania, or we want someone to work for this nonprofit, there was a little ad there that said, Bethany College, we're looking for someone to develop and expand our business program. And it had three criteria. It said you have to have an advanced degree in business. I had that.

8:13 You had to have five to seven years experience. I had six years, but I'd had a lot of experience with a lot of big companies by that time. I was very fortunate that way. And you had to be a person with a faith background and belief. And I certainly had that. And I called that number. And they said, yeah, we'd like to talk to you. Maybe you could fly out and meet with the administration, meet with the faculty. And I ended that day in your office. And this was before you had the top floor at the Stoll Center. It was at the administrative center wasn't built yet. So you had that little office just down not too far away. And you and I spent that last hour together again, 35 years ago.

8:53 We were just checking your humility quotient by bringing into that old World War II stream building. Oh, man. My goodness. Well, and now... Here you are, 35 years down the road, and you are leading a group called the Hayes Group International, where you connected along the way some way with Dr. Merwin Hayes. Is that his name? That's correct. And became his... sidekick or what I don't know what you would call it, but now you're leading the charge. Tell us what the Hayes Group International does, if you don't mind.

9:37 So this is our 50th year in business. Merwin Hayes was a gentleman who led the executive MBA program at Wake Forest University. And Dick, he grew up in the upper peninsula of Michigan. He calls it back in the woods, only child and felt a real call to ministry. But interestingly enough, he was a stutterer. And you can relate to this. I know your background. Identify. And he decided to study communications. So he got a degree in communications. He went on to get his master's degree.

10:18 He ended up at the University of Illinois in Champaign getting his Ph.D. in communication. Interesting enough, his dissertation was on the persuasive skills of the Andrew Johnson after Abraham Lincoln education. impeachment trial. And that would come back years later when he was summons to the Capitol during the Nixon administration all around the persuasiveness of this idea of impeachment. So he lived a very interesting life. He left a PhD program. He went to work to teach communications at the University of Georgia in Athens.

10:58 And there he became involved in the debate program. Wake Forest University started a debate program. They recruited him in the 60s here to Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And what most people don't know is Wake Forest University here in North Carolina was the second executive MBA program in the country. University of Chicago was first. And in the 1970s, they started this program where executives would come in from all over the United States to weekend programs. And Merwin Hayes was the director of that program. So in 1976, 50 years ago this year, many of the executives said, we need to take the programs you're doing there to our company.

11:41 And so he quit the university and he started what was then called Hayes Training Associates. And he built that company to about 110 people and worked with companies all over the world and decided to sell it. It sold to a larger company, which eventually became Aon Consulting, which is really large around the world. Mervyn was not a good... executive. He was a much better teacher and professor and entrepreneur. He did not like being executive vice president. So he started all over again. And he told his company, he was a man of great integrity, a man of great faith. And he told his company, I will not use any of the clients we've used before.

12:23 I'll start from scratch. And that became the Hayes Group International. Yeah. And he rebuilt it. There's about 30 of us who work in this area. And when I say this area, we do three things. We spend probably 50 to 60% of our time in leadership coaching, helping high potential leaders be the best they can be. We spend about 30% of our time around team development. How do you get new teams to come together? I spend a lot of time with that where people are changing all the time. And how do you work together? And how do you handle conflict? And how do you build those relationships, Dick, that you've spent your life helping people do and the importance of those?

13:04 And then we do some customized leadership training We've been very blessed and fortunate to have done this with over 1,700 organizations in 28 countries, in nonprofit, in government. And within our business session, a third of those business clients have been Fortune 500. So the big companies that you hear, all of word of mouth in many cases. My goodness. So when we triggered this crisis, podcast slash vlog a few months ago. It was at the memorial service for a dear friend of ours who roamed the world helping people, taking medical equipment all over.

13:50 And you've been on that board for a long time, Assistant International. But I said, would you do this with me? And you agreed to do it. And when I think of you, I sort of think of you as the change guru. Maybe that's because that's where I came in the door when we were at, because you were in this change management arena. You were in that arena. If I could ask you for a definition of change, or just in general, a couple of thoughts, okay. It's often said the two things you can count on are death and taxes. Well, you can add a third one to that, you know, because the change graph, if I can use it that way, or trajectory, and we'll get to this in a minute, is just taking off.

14:44 But what do you think of when you say change? So it's interesting. I talked about when I joined Bethany 35 years ago that I was divisional manager in change management. That's what we called it at that time in the 1980s. Now we talk not about management of change, but leadership of change because it's happening so quickly. So there's several things that come to mind with change. is one is the rapid acceleration. And so when we think about how quickly things are changing, years ago, we used to talk about change transition. How do we transition to change?

15:24 Or even we had this concept called change absorption. How much change can an organization absorb before it's the straw that breaks the camel's back? That's not true anymore. It happens so quickly, you can't even think about absorption anymore. or transition timing. I'm working with a really large, I won't say the name of it, one of the largest service companies. I'm actually heading to Colorado next week with the executive team where we're going off site. I interviewed all the executive team, what's working well, what's not working well. Two of the eight people I interviewed use this analogy, we are flying the plane while we're building it at the same time. And what does that mean? It means that we can't pause to kind of plan to think, or we're not doing that.

16:07 We probably should be doing that. So change, acceleration, leadership. So let's just land there for this moment. Because when I said, what would you like to talk about? You said three or four things, and this is one of them. So go ahead and say a few more things, and then I'll interrupt you. Okay. So... It's interesting. I was thinking, as I was thinking about our discussion today, probably 10 years ago. So the Hays Group did a lot of work with Nabisco and there was a guy there named Doug Continent and Doug left Nabisco. and he became the CEO of the Campbell Soup Company. And 10 years ago, he wrote a book called Touch Points.

16:50 And it's all the things that you and I would believe and know about leadership when you're thinking about making the connections and building the relationships. But in it, he said something that still stuck with me. He said this. He said, and think about 10 years ago, he said, in today's world, people are getting pinged, dinged, unindulterated and overwhelmed. And he said, you have about 20 balls that you're juggling in the air and people throw you three or four more. So when you think you're finally getting things done at work, you're letting things down at home, or where you think you're finally doing well at home, you feel like you're letting down your team. And he said, that life is not sustainable.

17:32 And he talked about the importance of leaders getting off the accelerating change treadmill. I would say that was 10 years ago. That has been amplified by probably 100 times in today's world where I work with people. I work with people who say, I have 35 hours a week on my calendar just with meetings. I have time where I can't pause enough to go from video conference to video conference. People are drowning in many ways with that unless they step back and step off this. How do you do that? And part of that is this concept of, I think, mind shift and mind change. So we've got to accelerate it.

18:14 change. We've got a short attention span. Axios, the press company, came out with a book last year, 2025, called Smart Brevity. And in it, it started with statistics. It said the average person in the United States. Now, this is average, Nick. This is everybody from the baby boomers to the generation Z looks at their phone 200 times a day. They decide in milliseconds, that's a tenth of a second, whether or not they like something. They said that we spend less than 30 seconds reviewing something we've written, whether that's an email or a text or even any other type of thing.

18:55 And only 16% of people actually read an entire email. What does that mean? We've got this accelerating change. We've got a short attention span world. Jonathan Haidt came out with a book, if you're familiar with it, called The Anxious Generation, right? I have it behind me here in the office. It's very eye-opening what he says, because what he says is technology is rewiring our brains in many ways. And so it's this idea of the neural pathways are being rewired. So we have all that happening in today's world now. And we're over communicated to, we're inundated in many ways with information.

19:37 So this is why change is not management anymore. It's leadership. So that person who's telling you this, whatever it is, How does that person get off the accelerated treadmill? That's a really hard question, isn't it? It's not an easy question. And I thought a lot about this and even written a bit on it. I think it starts with a mindset shift. And that is, do I need to be all things to all people? Do I need to consistently perform to be accepted, so to speak?

20:18 We would understand this from a faith perspective, but people outside of that may not. So it's a mind shift piece. There's also what I call an identity piece. And one of the books I read recently is a book called Atomic Habits. Yeah. And the next circle, he says process. And the outer circle, he says outcomes.

21:00 And he says there's a lot of people who spend time in process looking for outcome, but unless it comes back and shapes their identity. The example he uses is you want to write a book. That's your outcome. So what do you do? You put a process in place. I'm going to write a chapter a week. But his point is, if you do not believe you're a writer, the process and the outcome's not going to matter as much. So I have to believe I'm a writer. That's my identity. So I'm saying, how do you get off the treadmill? You got to shift your mindset in terms of where am I spending my time and my effort and my priorities. You have to identify who you are in terms as a leader, in terms of value-based.

21:43 And then I have to live those in such a way that... that I'm not living in a frantic and frenetic world. I'm living in that world, but I'm not living in a frantic and frenetic way. I'm leading with what I call leading with ease. And I think it takes mindfulness and intentionality and practice. That's my thought. I'd be interested in your perspective on that. Well, I'm just listening to this and thinking, you know, these are two of the great questions of humankind historically. Who am I? Why am I here? There were two or three others, but those two land right at the forefront. You know, my challenge in being a leader historically, and now, you know, I'm old now.

22:26 I don't lead anything. Well, I might lead myself to the dinner table. I have the privilege of going places and speaking with people and continuing to build relationships. But for someone who grew up from age 5 to age 28, coming back to your stutterer friend, your persona is framed by how you communicate. You know, I tell people, I felt as a teenager, I felt like I had a non-communicable social disease and that people kept looking me in the mouth.

23:08 But that focus of being able to say, who am I? Why am I here for somebody like me because of, in part because of that condition, I liked to be liked. It's okay to like to be liked. But it took me a while as president of the college to figure out that it's better to be respected than to be liked. And those don't have to be mutually exclusive, but that liking to be liked piece can really crank up the need to keep responding to everything.

23:49 And I was going on Facebook years ago back when, I was like, when it was young people on Facebook. Now it's old dudes that are on Facebook. And I said, I don't want to do the friends thing on Facebook. I said this to a grandson. He said, why? And I said, because they'll send you all these messages and you have to respond. And he said, no, you don't have to respond. I said, what do you mean you don't have to respond? My parents told me somebody speaks to me after a response. So anyway, all that to say that how the leader sees him or herself in terms of what needs to be done.

24:33 I think, was it Peter Drucker that said, you need to do the things that only you can do and let other people do the other things. If I'm hearing you correctly, that's part of how you get off the treadmill. I think that's part of it. One of the things we worked with really senior leaders with is a very simple tool It's what can I delegate today? What can I delegate tomorrow? Who can do it? And how will I feel comfortable? And there's a last column on that spreadsheet. We have people fill in. How would I use my time differently? It's a great introspective to step back and think about it. I was thinking, Dick, when you were talking about that persona and how communication is part of that, another way to get off the treadmill, and I hadn't thought of this until you triggered this thought, is I remember your story about first meeting Ruth.

25:19 Yeah. And you said to Ruth, you wouldn't want to date someone who's a stutterer. And if I remember the story correctly, she said, oh, I didn't notice that you were. And I think one way to get off those treadmills is to have someone in our life who helps us balance more, who believes the best in us, who wants the best for us. And I think good leaders do that for people who work for them and with them, is they want the best. And I really believe... If people think you want the best for them as a leader, that really helps when you are implementing a fast rate of change. That's right. Because people begin to trust you and they say, I believe that you want the best for us.

26:03 I had a really unique opportunity a few years ago in 2010. to interview at West Point at the Honors Library, General Fred Franks. And General Fred Franks at one point led over 240,000 troops in Desert Storm. And he was part of a book that Merwin Hayes and I put together in 2010 called Start with Humility. And he was part of a book that Merwin Hayes and I put together in 2010 called Start with Humility. His name came up a lot with people who said, if you think about humility, he's known as a soldier's general. He said something again that stuck with me, and I still use this with especially new leaders today. He talked about this idea of surrounding yourself with the right people, and if you build trust with them, and they believe you have their best interest in mind, you can accelerate change.

26:49 That was the context. But he said this. He said, let others be famous and feel good. If others feel famous and feel good, communication will happen. Innovation will happen. Change will happen. The team will move out and become unbeatable. And I still resonate on that. Let others be famous and feel good. I thought it was such a great phrase. That's great. So... This idea of humility and leadership, you had pinged that as a possible topic. Talk to me about, because some people would see those two things as mutually exclusive.

27:33 And we have worked with and for people oftentimes where those are mutually exclusive. Talk to me about that. Yeah, I think maybe more in today's world than ever before. 2010, we had an office just outside of Wake Forest University. And Merwin comes into my office one day and he said, you know, I've had this thought that that some of the most effective long-term leaders, not the people who come in and lead for a couple of years and they disappear, but the long-term leaders have this uniqueness that I would describe as humility. And he said, I'd like for you to do some research on humility in business.

28:13 And I began researching that. I found a lot of writing and humility in terms of philosophy, right, and religion. And, you know, the servant leadership concept was certainly in business as well, but not a lot written about humility. So we decided to write a book. And in that book, it's called Start With Humility. we actually previewed five leaders that we called the quiet CEOs. It was everywhere from General Franks to the first American chairman of a Japanese company, YKK. YKK, if you have a zipper anywhere on a backpack to clothing, it probably says YKK on it.

28:59 Seven billion zippers a year, 70% of the market. First time this guy has ever, first time an American's ever been a chairman of the board of a Japanese company. We talk about him. We talk about the president of PepsiCo, not PepsiCo, but Pepsi bottling. And we interviewed him. We do a whole chapter on him. He still sits on the board of Macy's and Starbucks today. All of these people had this concept of humility involved. And I think what happens is we think humility is sometimes meek, mild, non-assertive. You wouldn't say that about a four-star general. You wouldn't say that about the head of Pepsi. But what they did do is they had, if you go back to the Latin root of that word humility, it is close to the ground.

29:46 So what is close to the ground means? They're not in an ivory tower. They're approachable. They're open to new ideas. They admit mistakes. We say, I love working with that person because they're very down to earth. Yes, that's humility. And so that's the ability to say, I don't know, but I'll find out. And I made a mistake on that. I misinterpreted that. I own that. And it's amazing how that will connect with people. I've heard you say this before. I've heard you say that how people connect is often through their vulnerabilities. I don't need your stories. about how great you've done. I need you stories about where you've had failure.

30:26 And that's where I make that connection. I remember you saying that, Dick, at one point. And when people have this... Well, I model that. When people... The failure is part. Yeah. When people have that connection, and that is one way to look at humility, that vulnerability connects people. And I want to be part of your team and I want to be led by you. And... Because of that trust and credibility that you have, I'm going to trust you to implement where we're going change-wise. To what degree, and that's a great story and a great definition, to what degree is humility expressed differently?

31:12 by inviting people in. You know, you hear people, key leaders say often, people that I would respect because I've watched them over time, say, I always want to have people around me that are smarter than I am. Or they know that arena better than I know it. So I come back to my question, to what degree is humility expressed in inviting people in to where they might otherwise not before have been invited? Yeah, I think that's such a key part because people want to have a sense of belonging.

31:57 And I often say it this way, people want to add value and feel valued. So I've worked now with 135 companies since this is my 40th year working, 135 companies, 18 countries. I have yet... to meet a person who says, I want to show up to work and I want to do the worst job possible. I want to be a failure. I want to just not, I just, no, I think people want to do a good job. So they want to add value. But they want to feel valued. How do you feel valued? If I feel that I belong, how do I feel you belong? You invite people into that. But it's interesting. It's a bit of what you said earlier, too, Dick.

32:38 And this is my thought, is there is this balance and fine line between respected and being liked. It's not an either or, right? You can still be respected and be liked. I think there is a fine line sometimes with leaders where as a leader, you are consistently and constantly on stage. So you have to recognize you're on stage. So there's a bit of an actor part there in some ways. But yet at the same time, you have to be authentic and transparent and vulnerable and you find those two together.

33:19 probably the one or two second largest defense contractor on leadership presence. And they wanted me to come in and work with their executives. What is leadership presence? And I did a lot of research on it. And I came to this conclusion. There's three pieces to it. Competency plus connection plus command. So what does that mean? I'm competent. I've got the depth of knowledge. That's my credibility. But I have to have this connection piece. That's that relatability. That's inviting people in. That's the relationship piece that you talk a lot about. But then at the same time, I have to have command. What's command? I'm confident. I understand the room.

34:01 I command the room in many ways. And you put those three together. That's one way of looking at presence. I do have to say this in passing, Dick. I think I told you this once. One of the things I use in this session, and I'd used it with this group a year or so before on the connection piece, is... was a clip from your graduation speech at Northwest University, where you talk about the questions of where are you from? Where did you grow up? And how can I help you? And at the end of that transition, clip, you said, if you ask these two questions, you talked about the who versus the what, right? That's how I'm a who. And you said, if you ask these two questions, you'll always be busy, right?

34:45 You'll always have that connection. And it's just that short clip I introduce. I use you to introduce that connection piece of this as well. Are there any fees connected with that at all? Residual, you would think. That's what I meant. There should be. There should be. This is the residual right here. Yeah, I think that's out there on the Internet. That's where I found it. I want to get to the place of this book that you are putting out after 50 years. When you have, and I'm holding up my fingers about an inch apart here, when you have this much time with somebody, for an important thing.

35:29 You know, they always used to say that when President Reagan made decisions, he said, give me the case on a half sheet of notepaper. You know, it's back to what you were saying about people not finishing the email or whatever. A couple of things very quickly. When I lived in D.C. from 93 to 2008, had the privilege just by circumstances, God's grace coming together, where a friend of mine became head of the Navy. And I would send him emails. And I thought, well, I need to detail this so he knows what I'm either wanting or thinking about and so forth. So I'd send him a paragraph and I'd get one sentence back.

36:11 Just boom, like that. And at first I was a little put off, I think, saying, well, you know, he needs to elaborate a little more. But he didn't need to elaborate more. He was telling me what I needed to do to do the next step. So. In D.C., historically, it isn't a joke, it's just sort of rule of thumb that people in those positions, whether it's a congressman or somebody at Interior or somebody at the White House or the Pentagon, wherever, on the Hill, they live their life in 15-minute increments, you know, one after another, just like that. And I made this comment to you already when we were just chatting a little bit, and that was, you know, I wonder if the 15 minutes is down to seven and a half, just simply because of this short attention span of the executive.

37:04 Talk to me about it, because I have a friend, Steve Moore, who since 1975 has been a speechwriter for senators and for others, and he told me a few months ago that he used to write 45-minute speeches for senators. And now he was down to nine minutes. I believe that. So here's what the research would say. It would say what would been a 30-minute presentation now has to be done in six. And if you do have 30 minutes, every six minutes, you need to change something up. You need to have another speaker. You need to have a different background. Something has to happen. Of that six minutes, you have about 90 seconds to capture the attentions.

37:49 of the audience, of the executives. So we talk in our training and coaching a lot about what we call the first 90 seconds. What are you going to say in the first 90 seconds when you stand up or when you meet one-on-one? How are you starting that first 90 seconds? So that's one thing that we talk a lot about. I'll give you a really quick example of how I learned this. I was asked two years ago to speak at the Association of Builders and Contractors Convention. The Association of Builders and Contractors have, I believe, about 42,000 members. These are the top contractors. And it's an association right down across from the Capitol is where their office is. They are, you know, lobbying for different things around the construction industry.

38:33 Sure. And so I speak, they wanted me to speak on human performance and teams. And so I did this thing. I made it very interactive. Every six minutes you were working in a small group. The guy who came after me, Dick, it said on the agenda, it said, building houses on Mars, how robots will change our world in the next 30 years. Wow. I thought, wow, that's really interesting. I wonder what he's going to say. Now, this was two years ago. Wonder what he's going to say. How are they going to build houses on Mars with robots? So I wait, sit in the back of the room, and there's about 400 people in this room. I sit in the back of the room to listen to what he says. Here's his first 90 seconds. He gets up and he says, I know it's after lunch.

39:17 I know you're tired. I know you've been sitting here all day. So he begins to plant all these ideas. He says, there's not even any windows in this ballroom. You're probably sitting here thinking there's a ton of things right outside on the Las Vegas Strip that I could be doing right now. And so I thought, you know, it is after lunch. I have been sitting here. I never noticed there was no windows in this room. And there is a ton of things I could be doing outside of here. So I left. And one of the reasons I left is because in his first 90 seconds, he didn't set the tone. He planted these ideas. What if he had said in his first 90 seconds, I want to tell you how we'll be able to build houses with robots by using composite soil from the Mars soil that we can show up with oxygen houses when we get there in 30 years.

40:11 I would have been like, let's hear this. So back to this power of the first 90 seconds. Power of the first 90 seconds. Here's the second thing. This even goes back to your days of creating sermons. Yeah. it's what's called the rule of three, that despite how our bandwidth has improved within our mind and our memories, working memory, according to neurologists, still holds three things. There's usually three things. So we think in terms of three. Nike, just do it. McDonald's, I'm loving it. You know, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 250 years ago. All of those are the threes. So when you're communicating this, 30 minutes down to six, first 90 seconds sets the tone, rule of three.

40:55 And the last thing we teach is what's called primacy and recency. Primacy is what's your one most important message. You might have 10 great things. What's your one most important message? And this goes back to your communication days too, and you continue to be a great communicator. Recency, I remember the last thing I heard. So how do I connect the most important thing to the last thing I heard? And those are the three principles around short attention span world today. Kind of a three-legged stool, isn't it? It is. One way to think about it. So here you are. And is our friend Merwin Hayes still with us? Merwin passed away in 2017.

41:39 And so I worked with him for 17 years. And at that point in the last two years, he had a stroke and we transitioned the company where I became the leader. And we made that transition. It's interesting, Dick, I'll tell you, if I digress for just a moment here. These are some areas where you don't realize the impact you've had. We talked about meeting 35 years ago. Well, I spent two years at Bethany. The first year I was there, we put together this curriculum. I'm teaching it. I get a call from one of my ex-Anderson colleagues saying, how close do you live to Palo Alto? I said, I'm very close to Palo Alto.

42:20 And she said, we're starting this new project around California. drug development and we could really use your expertise. And so I started going there three days a week and teaching my classes two days a week. And then eventually it switched to where you left and went to D.C. And a year in, I left and went to work full time as an independent contractor. During that time in Palo Alto, I wrote some manuals around change and process that was picked up by a company in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Upjohn Pharmaceuticals. So again, I'm 30 years old now. I'm single. I didn't, you know, we were talking about, you know, I came to Bethany and I remember one time you told me, we can't pay you a lot, but we can give you any title you want.

43:06 And so you told me that to the beginning. I wasn't interested in pay. I didn't have a house payment or a family or even a car payment at that point. But I go to Michigan. I moved to Michigan and, I am teaching these classes on leadership and change. And that was my office too when people weren't in the class. I get this call one day and I'd given no one this number. This is one of those God moments. This is one of those moments that happens sometimes. that you go back and look at your energy and your journey. I get this call and I pick it up and there's a man on the other side. And he says, my name's Ron McManus from Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

43:48 Dick Foth gave me your phone number. And I thought, nobody has this phone number. So somehow Dick Foth has this phone number. I'm interested in, Dick said that you do these, facilitate these leadership, you know, things. I'm interested in you coming. And I came to Winston-Salem. And what happened is, is he said, and I'm interested in you doing this. And I'm interested in what we would call now chief of staff position. We didn't call it that 30 years ago. And here's what happened, Dick, is I said, you know, I'm really not interested, but I will take your phone number. And if I know somebody, I'll call them. And I hung up.

44:29 And I didn't think any more about it until I went back to my apartment. And I was very fortunate. Upjohn. provided me with a corporate apartment, so I didn't have any costs there either. And that night I could not sleep because I thought this might have been an opportunity. And I felt that tug of your heart, right, that said, I need to call this guy back. And I prayed that night and I said... I'm going to call back, and if he picks up, I need to talk to him. And I called back the next day, and what I learned is it was a large church, as you know. You were very involved. It goes through a switchboard, and it goes to an assistant, and then it goes to the senior leader. And he immediately picked up. And I said, you know, I realized I just didn't even say, I'll think about this.

45:09 I'll pray about it. I'll look into it. I said, I'm going to be in Washington, D.C. next week. Maybe I could drive down to Winston-Salem. I drive to Winston-Salem. I end up working with that staff retreat. The first day I'm there, there's a young lady. She's 29. I'm 31. She works for the United States Senator here in North Carolina. But on her time off, she works as a helper for a catering service. We have our first day of retreat. The caterer's there. And she introduced herself and she says, my name's Mary Bagnell. Mary Bagnell. I don't remember that. She remembers that. She says it took me seven months to ask her out. I finally did.

45:50 And we get married, right? And that's why I've been in Winston-Salem for 30 years. It's at that same church environment where someone says, you do things very similar to Merwin Hayes. Do you know Merwin Hayes? I said, I don't. One Sunday, he comes up to me and he's like, hey, I want to meet you because people are saying your name. Maybe we could go to lunch. And I say, absolutely. And that started to the year... 1998 and 2000, became a full-time employee with the Hayes International. That's that relationship, Dick Foth connection that connects all the way back 35 years when I sat in that little office and that connection became that years later in terms of that interaction of really being this concept of those moments of how your journey comes together.

46:44 And I don't know if you ever knew that connection. I don't know if we've talked about that before. I did not. And this is full disclosure for those of you watching or listening that, that I have not paid Mike for any of these comments. I am. I listened to you talk about God moments. And when you get in a certain ether with people in business, what we would call that elite layer, if you will, it's easy to get mesmerized, addicted to either the company or the adrenaline or whatever it is.

47:27 But my observation of you from afar, even though we haven't spent a lot of time together over the years, you know, I'm feeling great. This is like 35 years ago talking in my little frame office. The willingness and ability to recognize a God moment. In the midst of all of the glitter, the glitz, the hullabaloo, the fractiousness, whatever. Do you have a couple more of those God moments you can tell us about? And then I want to circle back and just say a couple of things about the book, 50 Lessons from 50 Years or whatever. Yeah, it's interesting. I think what happens is, and again, be very interesting your perspective on this.

48:09 I think you have to be in tune to that moment. And sometimes you recognize it after the fact, right? Sure. I read a story once in one of the books that Tim Keller wrote. And Tim Keller told the story about being at Gordon-Conwell and teaching a class there. And I know you have that Gordon-Conwell connection, too. And in the book, he said that... there was a visiting professor from outside the United States who was supposed to come and teach a summer session at Gordon-Conwell, but his visa was being held up. And he started his class that day. This is with graduate students at the seminary.

48:51 And he started his class that day saying, I'd like for you to pray for this situation about this professor. And afterwards, one of the graduate students came up to him and he said, I have some contacts in Washington, D.C. My dad works in Washington, D.C., and he said, I think I might be able to help with this. And Tim Keller said, you know, I welcome that help. And he went on to say in this book that that young guy's name was Mike Ford. And his father was Gerald Ford, who happened to be president at that time. And needless to say, the professor got his visa. But what he said is he said you could almost in some ways track that moment back to what he calls duct tape.

49:37 And he didn't call it the duct tape moment. I call it the duct tape moment because years before there was some what people might call third rate burglars who were going into a housing office complex and. in Washington, D.C., and they decided to take duct tape and put around the lock so the door doesn't close. There's a nighttime guard who says something's fishy about this. He calls the D.C. Metropolitan Police. They show up at the Watergate complex and they end up, you know, the rest of this is news through The Washington Post and Richard Nixon resigns. And Gerald Ford becomes president and Keller says Ford is now president and this professor gets to come to Gordon-Conwell all because of the duct tape on that door.

50:20 And so it's how that small things could turn into this great journey. I think those are part of those God moments, those moments where you're like, okay, you know, Do I go to PepsiCo who had offered me this job or do I go to Bethany College? I felt that was one of those moments where I felt very sure that I should do that. And that leads to the rest of the story. Right. There were times in business where it feels like this needs to be one of those moments. I'll tell you a really quick story as we wrap up. That was very interesting. clear to me. I talked to you about working with Uptown Pharmaceuticals a number of years ago. I was an independent person, so I didn't have a company around me.

51:02 And so literally, you didn't know what you're doing next. And there was an end of this project I was working on. And this project was all around how do you use technology to do new drug applications to the FDA? Because you used to send thousands of pages, and now they're saying you can put it into a computer, right, and send basically... a PDF at that point. And we didn't even know what PDF was. We were learning that. And so I was working on this project. I was doing a number of training classes. I knew it was ending. I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. And my office was right down the hall from a door that was on the side. And on the side of that office door, it said, Wisdom.

51:45 And every day I would show up to my office, I'd walk past that, and I would say this silent prayer. God, give me wisdom. God, give me wisdom. I don't know if you remember this or not, but when you were in Washington, D.C., Mary and I were in Washington, and you invited us one time to a study at John Ashcroft when he was senator from Missouri at the time. in his office. And one of the things he talked about in that study, I still remember it was because someone asked, there was a small group that would just show up. And I think you opted, right? And you invited people. And somebody said, do you pray over every decision? And he's like, no, I start by praying, give me wisdom for the day, right? Give me wisdom. I'm sure that was true when he was attorney general.

52:27 But so every day I'd walk past this. And I'd say, God, give me wisdom. I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. This is the God moment, I think. I wasn't sure what I was going to do next. And it comes down to the last day. I'm ending on Friday. Monday, I'm not sure what I'm doing. I haven't even, I've been too busy to even think about looking for a job. I get on the elevator with a guy who has been in one of my classes I've been teaching. He's like, you're still here. I said, yeah, I am. He said, what are you working on? And I said, well, the program for the FDA is beginning to... closed down. He said, oh, he's like, I'm working on a new program that I think you would be really helpful with.

53:09 Would you be interested in doing it? I said, absolutely. And he said, when can you start? I said, what about Monday? He's like, oh, Monday would be great. And I said, do I need to send you a resume? Do I need to? And he's like, no, no, no. I know you. I know your background. He's like, I'm actually going to the staffing meeting right now. And I'll tell them that anything around change and leadership, you've got it covered. Is that OK? I said, absolutely. The door opens, Dick, and he holds the door back and he says, oh, by the way, the name of this new program is called Worldwide Integrated System of Document Management. But we call it wisdom for short. Yeah.

53:50 and the door closes. And that's one of those moments where I thought, I've been praying for wisdom for months now, and here I start on Monday. That six-week program ended up being almost six years. And even when I was working in Winston-Salem, I was still being able to give the opportunity to spend a couple days going back and forth from Kalamazoo. So that's one of those That's a great story. I'm going to borrow that one. I'll give you full credit. So you're coming out with a book or the Hays Group is coming out with a book or whatever called 50 Lessons from 50 Years.

54:36 Is that correct? So it actually drops on October 1. It's called Five Minute Leadership. 50 lessons from 50 years. And the intent of this is there's 50 lessons. They're one to two pages, short attention span. There we go. You can read every lesson in less than five minutes. And so that's the intent. You could pick it up. And it's things that... The company, I personally, but also the company has learned and they've taught for 50 years. And so you literally, the idea is you pick it up, you use one lesson a day. It starts with what's called the big IT.

55:18 So could you give us just a sneak preview of two lessons, just two lessons from the 50 years? Pick any two. Two lessons. One is what we call tough on problems, but gentle with people. And it's when you have to have hard conversations. How do you ensure that you're focusing on the problem, not necessarily the personality of that person? And how are you helping solve that problem so it doesn't happen before? It was a Merwin Hayes-ism where he called it tough on the problem, gentle with the person. Another one that comes to mind is proud people working together together.

56:00 to achieve clear objectives. And the story behind that is he, Merwin got a call one time, this is 1976. There's a guy on the other end of the phone. He's like, I've got this new, I've got this new company. It's about four or five years old. I'm really struggling right now. Somebody gave me your number. And he's like, I'd like for you to tell me what makes the very best team, but he's like, I don't want you to tell me now. I want you to do some research. I don't want a white paper. Merwin was a professor. Remember, he was coming out of that idea. I don't want a white paper. I want one sentence. So they were talking about brevity 50 years ago. And Merwin does all this research. He looks at some of the best companies at that time, IBM, for example, and he comes up with this one phrase.

56:44 Proud people, not pride as in the lack of humility we've talked about, but people who take pride in what they do, who take pride and work for that company, who take pride in their skill set. Proud people working together, that's teamwork. To achieve, that's results, clearly defined objectives. Those are the goals. He gives it to the guy. The guy says, this is going to be the phrase I'm going to use for my company. We tell that story in there. That guy was Fred Smith. Fred Smith was the start founder of FedEx. And for a number of years, FedEx was, and one of our clients, and I worked at FedEx, and that phrase was used. Proud people working together to achieve success.

57:24 clear objectives. And so that's one of the chapters. And then we talk about what does it mean to be a proud person? What does it mean to achieve in teamwork? What do we mean by clear objectives? That's one chapter, five minutes. Well, Mike, this has been the longest conversation we've had since 1990. It could have been. Maybe, maybe not. I think so. I left. You know, I'm sitting here looking at you and listening to you and just, you know, really touched and thrilled by how you have been led and what you've been able to do and continue to do helping people.

58:05 And I'm thinking of that. Proverbs 3, 5, and 6, you know, trust in the Lord with all your heart, and He will direct your paths, and all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your path. That's what I'm feeling when I'm talking with you. Just to understand that in a day when things are moving so fast, it's a little bit like me as a kid writing my book, bike down a hill in Oakland, California, and I can't quite get it stopped. You know, I have this sense maybe the world's just going to get going faster and faster emotionally and politically, and it just blows up.

58:48 We don't need a nuclear thing. It'll just, you know, for lack of containment, for lack of guardrails or whatever, it'll just do that. But to have... someone who has not just studied it, but been in the middle of it since you were in your 20s. It's just, it's an honor to have you here, really is. I have one question. I haven't prepped you at all. Well, I haven't prepped you for any of this except to say, let's talk about these things. Make believe for a moment, pretend for a moment that I'm a 25-year-old and you are giving me counsel and you are giving me counsel Because I don't know what I'm going to do.

59:30 You know, I may, just to finish high school, I'm in the workforce. I may have gone to college. I may, I mean, at age 25, you can even have a grad degree or whatever. But let's just say I'm 25. And I'm saying, you know, just give me... Just give me a couple things to sort of track with as I move forward, because everything's unknown. I mean, and face it, you know, from day one, everything at day one is unknown. And along the way, we find out some stuff. Most of the things to know in the world, I don't know. Most of the people that live in the world, I don't know.

1:00:13 So unknowingness is a quality of the human condition. So talk to me, Michael. I tell you, the first thing that comes to my mind is I would say to someone, and it goes back to that concept that I said, identity and process and outcomes. And I would say to someone, 25, believe yourself blessed. What do I mean by that? If I have a mindset of I am blessed, I'm going to walk into a job with gratitude. I'm going to see things differently when there's change. I'm going to see, I'm going to understand when there's difficulty, what's the positive? I would start by make your identity better. believe yourself blessed, because I believe there are people who believe themselves blessed, and there's people who don't believe themselves blessed, and it shows up.

1:00:59 So, I would say believe yourself blessed would be one part of that. The other thing I would say is invest in relationships. And Dick, you've done this, you've taught this for years, right? Invest in relationships. Make that an important part of this. And then go back to your Proverbs, right? In terms of that trust and... and guidance and direction and being still enough to hear that still small voice of what should I do? And then also know that sometimes when it's not clear which path, you take that path and you believe that there's going to be guidance along that path, even though you take it.

1:01:41 That's what comes to my mind immediately. Great. Michael, thank you. Thanks for doing this. God bless you. Look forward to seeing you soon. My privilege, Dick. I was looking forward to talking to you. It's always great to interact and talk with you. So thank you for the opportunity. My joy. Well, that's it for our conversation with Mike Comer of Hays Group International. But more important than that, my friend, you know, we'll go with that. And I'm just, I'm grateful that there are people like Mike in our world who have hot hearts and cool heads. people who can take big situations and distill them so people like me, the proletariat out here in the hinterland, get a chance to grasp truths and ways to live life that not only help ourselves, but help others.

1:02:37 Well, that's it for today. This is Dick Foth signing off. Thanks a million for being with you, and we'll catch you next time around.