Have you ever heard these myths about implementing systems and processes for greater efficiency? Myth 1: It's too time-consuming and complicated. Myth 2: It stifles creativity and innovation. Myth 3: It's only for large organizations. In this episode, our guest Josh Fonger will debunk these myths and reveal the truth about the importance of implementing systems and processes for greater efficiency.
"Without knowing what the bullseye is, you don't know whether it's working for you or not. You need to set a standard and define what success looks like, so you can determine if your systems are helping you get there or not." - Josh Fonger
Access all show and episode resources HERE
Meet Josh Fonger - a dynamic force in the world of business performance architecture. Known for his innovative approach to simplifying and systemising processes, Josh helps business owners unlock remarkable growth. With rich experience across more than 300 industries, he has guided over 1,000 clients to overcome the chaos of daily operations, particularly when time, resources and money have reached a critical point. His Christian faith imbues his approach with integrity and purpose, serving as a reminder that order can indeed be birthed from chaos.
00:00:00 - The Visionary Leader,
The conversation starts with discussing the role of a visionary leader in a company. It is suggested that when the visionary is not constantly present in the office, the company can actually grow more because they disrupt things less and the machine runs better with fewer adjustments.
00:08:04 - The Type of Work,
Josh Fonger explains that his work as a consultant and coach is not specific to any particular industry. He helps leaders, business owners, and organizational leaders who have maxed out on their time, resources, and money. His focus is on helping them systemize their business for growth.
00:09:54 - Working with Different Organizations,
While Josh Fonger mainly works with smaller companies, he also assists larger organizations in fine-tuning their structures and managing their systems. The trigger point for seeking his help is often when key employees leave, or there are significant changes such as divorce or death in a family business.
00:12:05 - Preferred Client Size,
While Josh Fonger prefers to work with the leader or head of an organization, he doesn't turn down clients based on size. However, he acknowledges that the implementation process may vary depending on the stage and size of the company.
00:23:45 - The Importance of Systems,
Josh Fonger highlights the significance of systems in business and how they allow organizations to scale and grow. He emphasizes that systems help eliminate chaos, reduce stress, and enable businesses to function smoothly even when
00:14:33 - The Tension Between Visionaries and Systematizers,
This chapter explores the tension between visionaries and systematizers in a business setting. Visionaries thrive on new ideas and lack of structure, while systematizers love checklists and organization. The challenge lies in finding a balance between the two and allowing each person to play their role effectively.
00:15:46 - Empowering Visionaries and Technicians,
The chapter discusses how to empower visionaries and technicians in different types of companies. For smaller companies without a visionary, systematizing and delegating tasks can free up the technician to think more strategically. In larger companies with a visionary, it's best to let them focus on setting clear vision and stay out of day-to-day operations.
00:17:34 - Balancing Innovation and Structure,
This section emphasizes the importance of maintaining a balance between innovation and structure. While innovation is crucial for growth, having a structure or recipe for how things are done allows for testing and data-driven decision-making. This way, adjustments can be made based on real results rather than relying solely on gut instincts.
00:18:31 - Getting Visionaries and Technicians to Adopt a Systems Mindset,
The chapter discusses whether it's easier to get a visionary to adopt a systems mindset or a technician to think big picture. It's found that once technicians are freed from day-to-day tasks, they often become more visionary than they realize. Visionaries, on the other hand, are encouraged to support and lead the philosophy of systemization without getting involved in day to day operations.
00:29:33 - The Importance of Documenting Systems,
Josh Fonger shares how he realized the importance of documenting systems and structures in order to make lasting changes in businesses. He learned this lesson after experiencing repeated problems that he thought he had already solved. By documenting systems, he was able to ensure that changes stuck and could be built upon.
00:31:11 - The Humbling Experience of Financial Loss,
Josh discusses how losing everything financially and professionally was the most humbling period of his life. He had to redefine success and found his identity in Christ. Through this experience, he learned about God's sovereignty and provision, and the importance of starting each day with prayer.
00:32:32 - Lessons Learned During Difficult Times,
Josh reflects on the lessons he learned about resilience, God's provision, and the need for wisdom beyond oneself during difficult times. He also emphasizes the importance of relying on God's timing and not trying to control the future.
00:36:52 - Embracing Humility and Dependence on God,
Josh talks about how his experiences, including being a consultant during COVID, have taught him the importance of humility and dependence on God. He realizes that he doesn't have all the answers and needs wisdom beyond himself to guide his clients. Prayer and listening to God have become more important to him than relying solely on knowledge and expertise.
00:40:25 - Getting Started with Systems,
Josh advises starting with the simplest system that happens every day and documenting it.
00:44:03 - The Psychology of Delegation,
Josh discusses the psychology behind why some leaders struggle with delegation. Factors such as comfort, perfectionism, and the tyranny of the urgent can prevent leaders from effectively utilizing their resources and delegating tasks. Straight-A students and valedictorians often have the hardest time with delegation due to their desire for perfection and recognition.
00:46:21 - Perfectionism and Sacrifice in Spiritual Organizations,
In spiritual organizations, there is often a belief that sacrificing oneself for the greater good will earn favor with God. However, this mindset can lead to burnout and ineffective results. Leaders in these organizations should focus on building systems and delegating tasks to prevent overwork and improve outcomes.
00:48:11 - Practical Steps for Implementing Systems,
To start implementing systems, leaders should create a list of all their daily tasks and analyze them for productivity. Eliminate unnecessary tasks and work on documenting systems for tasks that can be delegated. Additionally, leaders should continuously evaluate and improve existing systems for greater efficiency.
00:50:10 - The Importance of Time Tracking,
Time tracking can help leaders identify areas of wasted time and make necessary adjustments. Many people underestimate how much time they spend on unproductive activities such as checking social media or consuming irrelevant information. By tracking time and making intentional changes, leaders can gain more control over their schedules.
00:54:14 - Creating White Space and Hearing from God,
Systems and structure provide leaders with the opportunity to create white space in their business and in their lives. This allows for more creative moments and idea generation.
00:58:04 - Conclusion and Next Steps,
Tim thanks Josh for being on the podcast and announces that new episodes are released every Monday. Encourages listeners to continue being their best selves.
1. The importance of defining one's professional title and incorporating faith into it. The speaker shares their struggle and the impact of adding "faith-driven executive coach" to their bio.
2. The significance of humility in work and life. The speaker emphasizes the value of humility in their own experiences as a consultant during challenging times and acknowledges the limitations of their knowledge and expertise.
3. The unpredictability of the future and the need for wisdom beyond oneself. The speaker recognizes that no matter how well-planned a strategy may be, no one can accurately predict the future. They stress the importance of seeking guidance from a higher power and relying on their community with God.
4. The importance of reclaiming mental space. The speaker shares their personal practice of avoiding social media and news for over two years to prioritize mental clarity and effectiveness in their role as a business consultant, father, and husband.
5. The value of implementing the right information rather than accumulating excessive knowledge. The speaker highlights their role in providing specific ideas and questions to help solve business problems, encouraging listeners to focus on what they specifically need in their circumstances.
6. The power of systemizing and delegating tasks for business growth and expansion. The speaker explains how they help small companies by systemizing and delegating tasks, freeing up time for a visionary role. They emphasize the importance of documentation and creating clear standards.
7. The importance of recognizing and addressing the simplest symptoms of inefficiency. The speaker advises starting with the simplest symptom that occurs daily when trying to improve efficiency, providing an example of helping the head of a church's marketing department delegate tasks.
8. Overcoming barriers to delegation. The speaker acknowledges the various reasons individuals struggle with delegation and offers insights into how to overcome these barriers, such as fear of imperfection, comfort with doing tasks themselves, and lack of forward-thinking mindset.
9. The need for patience and humility in understanding God's time frames. The speaker shares personal experiences of living in a relative's condo and house-sitting, emphasizing the potential positive aspects that may be unseen initially and suggesting the importance of redefining success.
10. The value of analyzing and tracking daily activities to identify time-consuming and unproductive tasks. The speaker encourages listeners to eliminate unnecessary tasks and delegate others, sharing examples of improved processes through analysis and documentation.
11. The importance of embracing change and improving processes. The speaker talks about encountering resistance from those accustomed to doing things a certain way but emphasizes the benefits of finding better and faster ways of completing tasks.
Our podcast is dedicated to empowering Christian leaders, entrepreneurs, and individuals looking to redefine success in their personal and professional lives. Through in-depth interviews, personal anecdotes, and expert advice, we offer valuable insights and actionable strategies for achieving your goals and living a life of purpose and fulfillment.
If you enjoyed this episode and found it helpful, we encourage you to subscribe to Seek Go Create on your favorite podcast platform, including Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, and Spotify. By subscribing, you'll never miss an episode and can stay up-to-date on the latest insights and strategies for success.
Additionally, please share this episode or what you’ve learned today with your friends, family, and colleagues on your favorite social media platform. By sharing our podcast, you can help us reach more people who are looking to align their faith with their work and lead with purpose.
If you love our podcast and find it valuable, please consider leaving us a 5-star rating and review on your preferred podcast platform. Your review can help us reach more people and inspire them to redefine success in their own lives.
For more updates and episodes, visit our website or follow us on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok and YouTube. We appreciate your support and look forward to helping you achieve your goals and create a life of purpose and fulfillment.
Are you a Faith Driven Leader? Take our quiz to find out! Discover how aligned your faith is with your work and leadership style.
Thank you for listening to Seek Go Create!
Mentioned in this episode:
Unlock Your Leadership Potential with Tim Winders Executive Coaching
Feeling stuck is frustrating, but the path to a breakthrough may be just a discovery call away. Tim Winders, your trusted podcast host, offers transformative coaching sessions that integrate strategic thinking, relationship-building skills, and faith-based principles. Whether you're aiming for revenue growth or more intangible leadership qualities, Tim's coaching approach has a proven history of success. Schedule a free discovery call today and experience the transformation for yourself.
He said when he was less in the office.
Josh Fonger:The company would grow more because he was more of the visionary.
Josh Fonger:He almost disrupt things too much.
Josh Fonger:And so if we can make the visionary feel comfortable with the day
Josh Fonger:to day, they can actually do more growth, by not being there.
Josh Fonger:Because the, the machine will run better with less adjustments.
Tim Winders:Welcome to Seek, Go, Create.
Tim Winders:This is your host, Tim Winders.
Tim Winders:This is where we redefine success in leadership, business, and ministry,
Tim Winders:sharing topics, stories, and conversations that just allow us to rethink how we live.
Tim Winders:Work and lead great conversation today.
Tim Winders:I'm excited to have Josh Fonger.
Tim Winders:He's a consultant coach and speaker who's recognized as a leading authority
Tim Winders:in business performance architecture, and he helps business owners.
Tim Winders:I love these words, simplify, systemize, and generate powerful growth.
Tim Winders:He's building thriving businesses, families, and communities.
Tim Winders:Josh, welcome to seek, go create.
Josh Fonger:Hey, glad to be here, Tim.
Tim Winders:I'm glad that you're here too.
Tim Winders:And, I'm excited that we get to have this conversation.
Tim Winders:I'm a systems guy.
Tim Winders:I mentioned it right before we hit record.
Tim Winders:I'm a, I'm an industrial, my degree is industrial and systems engineering.
Tim Winders:And I feel like we're going to have some discussion about some systems
Tim Winders:here, but before we dive into all of that, Let's just say we bump into each
Tim Winders:other at church or on a plane somewhere.
Tim Winders:And I ask you, we don't know each other.
Tim Winders:And I ask you what you do.
Tim Winders:What do you tell people when they ask you what you do?
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:I just say I'm a Christian business consultant and they
Josh Fonger:usually say, what does that mean?
Josh Fonger:And then I say, help small business owners break free from the day to day chaos by
Josh Fonger:getting control of their business systems.
Tim Winders:All right.
Tim Winders:So there's one thing that's really interesting you added
Tim Winders:there that I think I saw it in one of the things I read about you.
Tim Winders:You put in front of all that you do the Christian, the term Christian.
Tim Winders:And I'm curious, do you do that all the time?
Tim Winders:This is not like a condemning question either, by the way,
Tim Winders:I'm not, this is not judgy.
Tim Winders:So let's take that off the table.
Tim Winders:Do you do that all the time?
Tim Winders:Or is it some of the time?
Tim Winders:Do you just Have a nudge or when do you and because I think you've got
Tim Winders:it on LinkedIn also, but How and when do you add that term christian?
Josh Fonger:Yeah, that's a great question.
Josh Fonger:And, it's been, my wife asked me this question.
Josh Fonger:She says, you've been doing this business consulting, trying to, emulate, display,
Josh Fonger:glorify God in everything you do.
Josh Fonger:But how often do people actually know that's what you're trying to do?
Josh Fonger:And I realized, and I've been a lot of podcasts, and I try to share
Josh Fonger:something about my relationship with God during these episodes.
Josh Fonger:And a lot of times the question doesn't come, they'll ask you about
Josh Fonger:a checklist or a procedure or how to make something more efficient.
Josh Fonger:and I just came to the conclusion that if I don't put it right in the
Josh Fonger:beginning, It might not come up.
Josh Fonger:And, I guess people like you permission to ask me questions.
Josh Fonger:And for about half my clients and most people I talked to on podcast,
Josh Fonger:they aren't that interested.
Josh Fonger:That's not something they're curious about.
Josh Fonger:And so they don't ask me about it, but that's been a very recent shift,
Josh Fonger:in that, I'm going to actually.
Josh Fonger:not to be ashamed of who I am, who God made me, I need to put it out there and
Josh Fonger:give people an opportunity to respond.
Tim Winders:Yeah, the reason I like it and the reason I asked the question
Tim Winders:is i've gone back and forth on that myself I think if I go to my website
Tim Winders:now and go to some of the bios and all of them written i've added something
Tim Winders:like And I hope this isn't wishy washy.
Tim Winders:I sought the lord for this.
Tim Winders:I've added something like faith driven executive coach or something.
Tim Winders:I added it because one of the things that I desire is I want
Tim Winders:people to ask me questions and also want to be able to lead with it.
Tim Winders:And I sometimes I'll give you a good example.
Tim Winders:A while back, I was trying to decide what to put on some social media channels.
Tim Winders:And I'm sure you've gone through similar things.
Tim Winders:what is my title?
Tim Winders:What do I put there?
Tim Winders:family, family, man, father, now I'm a grandfather, all that kind of stuff.
Tim Winders:and I, it was when I was trying to identify what my roles were.
Tim Winders:And I remember going to Tim Tebow's, I think it was his Instagram page.
Tim Winders:And what was fascinating is as his I guess his role there.
Tim Winders:He just had athlete but yet We all know where tim tebow stands with his fate
Tim Winders:and i've always just i've been intrigued by that and it's not a I don't think
Tim Winders:there's right or wrong answers But I do want to say and I and we're going to go
Tim Winders:ahead and layer it in here We're going to talk a lot about systems But, see,
Tim Winders:I believe that part of what we're doing here is we're creating order out of chaos.
Tim Winders:And I think that is the entire biblical story.
Tim Winders:And so what we're doing is a practical application of
Tim Winders:a bigger biblical narrative.
Tim Winders:And so I applaud you for putting Christian there and we're gonna, we probably will
Tim Winders:bring it up again before we're done here.
Tim Winders:So thanks for answering that.
Tim Winders:now one of the thing to kind of a logistics thing, you've just
Tim Winders:moved to my old home state.
Tim Winders:you're up in the, I think the mountains of North Georgia and, and that sounds
Tim Winders:like it's a recent move for you.
Tim Winders:Just curious what brought you to Georgia because I don't get around there much.
Tim Winders:In fact, I just visited and I needed to get away from the humidity.
Tim Winders:I won't go into details there, but I just left there.
Tim Winders:Okay.
Josh Fonger:Yeah, we spent most of our life in, Arizona and Oregon, and
Josh Fonger:then through a long story that I'll cut short, we end up in Kauai, and we
Josh Fonger:were in Kauai for a year and realized that, It was time to settle down,
Josh Fonger:time to settle down with the kids.
Josh Fonger:We've got four kids and, after praying about it, we ended up in Chattanooga and
Josh Fonger:in that area and, looking for houses.
Josh Fonger:We looked in the Chattanooga area.
Josh Fonger:We liked it there.
Josh Fonger:And the epicenter of our search became wider and wider.
Josh Fonger:And then eventually, we had a list of things that we were praying
Josh Fonger:about in terms of where we wanted to live and this little town called L.
Josh Fonger:A.
Josh Fonger:J.
Josh Fonger:Just, on the Appalachian mountains rate that the south tip of it, kept up, kept
Josh Fonger:coming up and then a house popped up and we were like, This is the one it,
Josh Fonger:essentially we saw it and, 30 days later we moved in and it was a confirmation of
Josh Fonger:a prayer that we had made for a long time, but I verbalize it to my parents who are
Josh Fonger:not believers about 45 days before I said.
Josh Fonger:for our 20 year anniversary, I want to, celebrate with my wife in a new house
Josh Fonger:and don't think that's going to happen.
Josh Fonger:There's all these reasons why it's not going to happen.
Josh Fonger:Like logically, no chance really.
Josh Fonger:That's my prayer.
Josh Fonger:I tell my parents, I'm like, Oh, that sounds nice.
Josh Fonger:and then 40 days later, we were there right before anniversary.
Josh Fonger:So it, anyways, we just know we're supposed to be here.
Josh Fonger:We don't know why yet.
Josh Fonger:We've only been here a few months, but, we love it.
Josh Fonger:It's great.
Josh Fonger:kids love it.
Josh Fonger:And we're just happy to see what God has for us next.
Tim Winders:congratulations.
Tim Winders:That's a beautiful part of the world.
Tim Winders:My wife and I've been traveling now for almost 10 years and one of the
Tim Winders:most beautiful spots in the world.
Tim Winders:There's a lot of them, by the way, but the world is a beautiful place.
Tim Winders:But the, the portion in North Georgia there, when especially the time of year,
Tim Winders:we're recording this in late August, the last day of August, probably, people can
Tim Winders:start checking this out in September.
Tim Winders:This episode, but that fall time of year, you're about to see some beautiful things.
Tim Winders:If you were in Chattanooga area, you saw some of it.
Tim Winders:and the cool thing is, I think this kind of leads into the type work you
Tim Winders:do and all that you, you mentioned you homeschooled your children, which is cool.
Tim Winders:We did that with our children.
Tim Winders:They're grown now, but your work is also not geographic specific.
Tim Winders:So tell me more about the type work you do.
Tim Winders:And I think that's going to lead into some of our.
Tim Winders:Systems conversations and some of the deeper things that a lot of
Tim Winders:people might be tuning into here
Josh Fonger:yeah, definitely.
Josh Fonger:you've got the book, I'll put it up here real quick.
Josh Fonger:The book work, the system, which I didn't write.
Josh Fonger:Sam Carpenter wrote it, is really the type of.
Josh Fonger:Consulting and coaching.
Josh Fonger:I do a method consulting and, the book is all about how to organize chaos.
Josh Fonger:And it's written from a very personal, story, Sam Carpenter's story from
Josh Fonger:working a hundred hour work weeks down to two hour work weeks and
Josh Fonger:growing his income up 20 times.
Josh Fonger:And how did he do that?
Josh Fonger:And he mechanically details how he set structure in his
Josh Fonger:business and made it happen.
Josh Fonger:And so for me, as people read the book, hear about the book, listen to a podcast.
Josh Fonger:They're intrigued and, they contact us through some method.
Josh Fonger:And then I do a coaching or consulting, or I fly out there and help them
Josh Fonger:and help organize their business.
Josh Fonger:And I know this is a kind of a faith based show.
Josh Fonger:So sometimes it is churches or church choirs, or, Christian organizations that,
Josh Fonger:that want to build this structure in.
Josh Fonger:And that's what I do.
Josh Fonger:I help them make that a reality.
Tim Winders:and I read in the back of the book There's actually a section where you
Tim Winders:give a number of examples case studies.
Tim Winders:I guess I think it's titled And one of the things I was wanting to do
Tim Winders:Was get a feel for the type client or person that you work with and let
Tim Winders:me just say I didn't really see a specific industry or anything like that.
Tim Winders:This stuff crosses Systems type Implementation crosses all industries
Tim Winders:and organizations, correct?
Josh Fonger:it does.
Josh Fonger:And unfortunately that makes my life way more complicated because it'd
Josh Fonger:be nice if it was like, Hey, this is just for restaurants or this is just
Josh Fonger:for, hair salons, whatever it is.
Josh Fonger:but we've had them all over 300 industries or a thousand clients.
Josh Fonger:It, it touches.
Josh Fonger:I guess probably the best way to explain it is, we work with leaders or business
Josh Fonger:owners or organizational leaders, who they have, they maxed out on their time.
Josh Fonger:They've maxed on the resources that max out on their money.
Josh Fonger:and they realize they just can't, they can't grow.
Josh Fonger:They can't go beyond where they are because, everything's in their
Josh Fonger:head and the stress has reached, a critical point and they know.
Josh Fonger:If they're going to expand, another location or expand the organization or
Josh Fonger:pass it down, they've got to get what's in their head and in their team's head
Josh Fonger:into some kind of format, some kind of structure so that they can grow
Josh Fonger:from there, they can scale from there.
Josh Fonger:And so we, we get clients when they've.
Josh Fonger:They've hit that trigger point.
Josh Fonger:Maybe they're key operations manager, Lee left.
Josh Fonger:Maybe they're one of their key employees.
Josh Fonger:it's pregnant and is going to be leaving the company.
Josh Fonger:They're like, now what do we do?
Josh Fonger:Or sometimes it's rougher situations where it's a family business and
Josh Fonger:there's a divorce or there's a death in the family or something like that.
Josh Fonger:And they say, you know what?
Josh Fonger:We can't just pretend like the organization is going to keep going in
Josh Fonger:this trajectory when we haven't actually written down how we do what we do.
Josh Fonger:And, that's when we work with companies and, it's usually smaller companies,
Josh Fonger:but, sometimes the larger companies.
Josh Fonger:They had the same problem that they just wanted.
Josh Fonger:It's less about getting the initial structure.
Josh Fonger:It's more about fine tuning the structure, measuring the structure and managing with
Josh Fonger:the structure that they're looking for.
Tim Winders:I'm curious with large organizations.
Tim Winders:I've found a sweet spot that I like to work with.
Tim Winders:And the way I define it a little bit similar.
Tim Winders:I've gotten to where I will only work with the leader or
Tim Winders:the head of the organization.
Tim Winders:I'm not going to jump down and work with teams or departments or things like
Tim Winders:that because often there's just too much resistance from other places and you
Tim Winders:don't have the control type situation.
Tim Winders:That's me.
Tim Winders:and I also like it when there's some degree of a leadership team in place.
Tim Winders:Doesn't have to be well defined, doesn't have to be super mature or advanced, but
Tim Winders:there needs to be something else there.
Tim Winders:And sometimes it would be a couple or something like that.
Tim Winders:But, and then I found that there's a size and I haven't really pinpointed it that
Tim Winders:I don't really want to get beyond that.
Tim Winders:Because there are too many things that are entrenched and making
Tim Winders:change is going to, it's going to be met with just a lot of resistance.
Tim Winders:maybe we might be dancing or working around with similar type people.
Tim Winders:Does that sound correct too?
Josh Fonger:Yeah, it does.
Josh Fonger:But I, for me, if somebody wants to help, I don't say, I don't say no.
Josh Fonger:So I've got boundaries in how I'm going to help them, but I'm not
Josh Fonger:going to, if someone comes to me and they're like, I've had some, pre
Josh Fonger:revenue startups and I want to work with you, Get our systems in order.
Josh Fonger:have you ever made a sale?
Josh Fonger:No.
Josh Fonger:Okay.
Josh Fonger:we're going to, the way I'm going to implement this is going to be different
Josh Fonger:because we're going to be taking more iterations, more experimentations,
Josh Fonger:the system we build and we bury, on the back of a napkin as we build out
Josh Fonger:this business and other companies.
Josh Fonger:Complete opposite boards of directors and committees, and it's super complicated
Josh Fonger:and it's difficult to get traction.
Josh Fonger:but if they're bought into this philosophy and they're asking for help,
Josh Fonger:I'm going to be there to help them in whatever that capacity is going to be.
Josh Fonger:And yeah, I prefer to work with the owners and the CEOs if possible, but
Josh Fonger:sometimes they say, you know what, I'm too busy work with the operations manager.
Josh Fonger:And a lot of what I do is.
Josh Fonger:Operational improvement.
Josh Fonger:So I've had a lot of success with sometimes not always working with the
Josh Fonger:visionary, but sometimes working with the person who's actually going to
Josh Fonger:implement the structure and, hold the teams accountable to that structure.
Tim Winders:So that brings up a great question.
Tim Winders:I'm glad you brought that, you can have the visionary, you
Tim Winders:could have the implementer.
Tim Winders:The implementer in all likelihood is the person that is going to
Tim Winders:get extremely excited about.
Tim Winders:Systems my wife is wired For systems in fact, not too long before I clicked
Tim Winders:record here before I jumped on the call I was going through the book and
Tim Winders:I saw some of the items that would be the Processes procedures strategies
Tim Winders:that are included and in the back of the book in the appendix and I said,
Tim Winders:you know My comment was sweetheart.
Tim Winders:You would love this checklist and everything like that She's got
Tim Winders:her she's a scrum leader and she's an Agile, project manager person.
Tim Winders:And she, she really loves lists, checklists, systematizing things.
Tim Winders:And, and so the implementer would love this.
Tim Winders:However, this is what I want to, this is a, that was a long winded
Tim Winders:way to get into the question.
Tim Winders:Oftentimes visionaries who it's usually a different person.
Tim Winders:Sometimes it could be the same person, oftentimes a different person.
Tim Winders:The visionary loves.
Tim Winders:Let's just say they've got that entrepreneur feel.
Tim Winders:They love the energy of new stuff.
Tim Winders:they love the lack of, boundaries and structure and things like that.
Tim Winders:And I, I all often joke that entrepreneurs.
Tim Winders:are people that really Have attention deficit disorder and they're just really
Tim Winders:always looking for the next thing to go after so Talk about the tension and this
Tim Winders:is going to lead into the mindset of systems So i'm not asking that yet, but
Tim Winders:talk about the tension, I guess between someone who Really loves the checklist
Tim Winders:and all like my wife and then someone who even though i'm a systems person I love
Tim Winders:a little bit of the art the flow the new stuff Maybe even a little bit of messy.
Tim Winders:So how challenging is that when we're looking at this kind of stuff?
Josh Fonger:It's extremely challenging.
Josh Fonger:And, once I started working with the client, I try to.
Josh Fonger:Read who they are, right?
Josh Fonger:So oftentimes the smaller companies that they are more of the technician
Josh Fonger:that they actually like doing the work and their issue is I'll let
Josh Fonger:them know is there is no visionary.
Josh Fonger:There is nobody who's actually expanded business.
Josh Fonger:There's no one who's actually.
Josh Fonger:Looking out two to five years.
Josh Fonger:And so I need to get them out of the day to day by systemizing
Josh Fonger:and delegating what they do.
Josh Fonger:So they can't be more of a visionary, right?
Josh Fonger:In the case of companies that are larger than they have a visionary.
Josh Fonger:I'm less inclined to push them into the day to day structure.
Josh Fonger:I'm more inclined to say.
Josh Fonger:I do need you as a visionary to set the vision clearly in writing,
Josh Fonger:but beyond that, I need you to just agree with this vision and
Josh Fonger:you can stay out of the day to day.
Josh Fonger:the more you're gone and Sam Carpenter righteous in his book.
Josh Fonger:And he and I talk all the time.
Josh Fonger:He said when he was less in the office.
Josh Fonger:The company would grow more because he was more of the visionary.
Josh Fonger:He almost disrupt things too much.
Josh Fonger:And so if we can make the visionary feel comfortable with the day
Josh Fonger:to day, they can actually do more growth, by not being there.
Josh Fonger:Because the, the machine will run better with less adjustments.
Josh Fonger:And so I do try to let people know that.
Josh Fonger:And then ultimately, the way we push this methodology is we let them know that
Josh Fonger:innovation needs to always be happening.
Josh Fonger:But once you have a structure or you have a recipe for how each
Josh Fonger:thing is done, you can actually.
Josh Fonger:Add those innovations to the recipe and run tests, run a B tests,
Josh Fonger:just run a parallel system just to see which one works better.
Josh Fonger:And, instead of just following your gut, which maybe works okay with a
Josh Fonger:very small company, you actually have some real data and you'll be able
Josh Fonger:to look back and see how you did it.
Josh Fonger:And then make adjustments from there.
Tim Winders:So is it, this is something I ask myself and there may not be an
Tim Winders:answer for this, but I'm asked your thoughts or opinions or your, the
Tim Winders:data that you've gotten just from all the people that you've worked with,
Tim Winders:is it easier to get a visionary?
Tim Winders:To begin moving towards a system thinking type systems mindset, is it
Tim Winders:easier to take someone who is more that technician practical, they've
Tim Winders:got a lot of the systems thinking to get them to think big picture.
Tim Winders:You mentioned it in that response.
Tim Winders:You talked about some that you work with.
Tim Winders:Have you noticed one or the other that is a little bit easier
Tim Winders:and easier path to go down.
Josh Fonger:Yes.
Josh Fonger:yeah.
Josh Fonger:I would say just from my experience that the ones who are very much the day to
Josh Fonger:day and the day to day how things work structure, once they are free from the
Josh Fonger:stress of having to carry all those tasks on their shoulder, those burdens, they
Josh Fonger:tend to open up and have more visions than they realized and more possibilities.
Josh Fonger:They just never given themselves a chance to dream and think because they're
Josh Fonger:so worried about the next client, the next phone call, the next delivery.
Josh Fonger:That once they, they have that stress removed, they become more
Josh Fonger:visionary than they ever have been.
Josh Fonger:And so that, that is a much easier route to go with the ones who are already,
Josh Fonger:they're ingrained in being visionaries.
Josh Fonger:I just want them to agree with the philosophy.
Josh Fonger:I want them to support and lead the philosophy.
Josh Fonger:I want them to be a cheerleader.
Josh Fonger:And encourage the philosophy, but I'm not asking them to now really work on
Josh Fonger:the structure because I know that, it hasn't worked very well in the past.
Josh Fonger:And so if I can just get them to not screw up the structure that's being
Josh Fonger:built, and stay out of the way, that tends to be the best with implementations.
Tim Winders:So listen, here's what we really need you to do.
Tim Winders:We need you to just get out of the way, and telling a leader or a
Tim Winders:founder or someone in an organization that probably needs to be done much
Tim Winders:more delicately than I just did it.
Tim Winders:I think you did it in a better way there.
Tim Winders:but in reality though, that is, The case and in and they probably know that but
Tim Winders:actually doing it I mean, that's one of the things I work with is just changing
Tim Winders:the thinking and the thought process of a lot of leadership and leadership teams,
Tim Winders:which leads me into This term that's in the book and I think it's something
Tim Winders:that's very important to what you do and it's systems mindset or systems
Tim Winders:thinking i'm I think it's correct me if i've got the term wrong, but talk a
Tim Winders:little bit about that why it's a bit of a challenge why some people do it well
Tim Winders:and some people are Moving into it and why it's important for all of us that are
Tim Winders:leading running, operating organizations
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:And so Sam Carpenter coined the term and he's written a book, the system's mindset,
Josh Fonger:which goes into it even further, the book work, the system is really the business
Josh Fonger:application of the system's mindset.
Josh Fonger:And, so Sam really describes it as, an average person is just going to
Josh Fonger:walk in the street and they're going to respond to the site sounds events,
Josh Fonger:things that are actually happening.
Josh Fonger:They respond to them.
Josh Fonger:The system's mindset would say, elevate yourself above what's happening and
Josh Fonger:look down and see the, how things translate through time and then examine
Josh Fonger:and take apart the systems that produce the results that you're getting.
Josh Fonger:And so if you're getting certain results in your health relationships,
Josh Fonger:your business, instead of focusing on.
Josh Fonger:And reacting to those results, instead, examine the separate systems and
Josh Fonger:isolate them that produce those results.
Josh Fonger:And so it's about, seeing That, there was a logical progression of
Josh Fonger:steps that led you to where you are.
Josh Fonger:And if you instead worked on those systems, you would
Josh Fonger:be at a different result.
Josh Fonger:And so a lot of what we do is help isolate those separate systems,
Josh Fonger:work on them, and then let the results take care of themselves.
Tim Winders:And so one of the things when I was reading through the book and reading
Tim Winders:the early sections of it, I kept thinking about, I kept looking at myself personally
Tim Winders:when I was looking at it truthfully.
Tim Winders:I wasn't really thinking organizational, I was thinking personal and I was thinking
Tim Winders:about how I am at times maniacal about habit creation, about forming habits.
Tim Winders:And then I can be a little bit overly habit forming, but very similar to what
Tim Winders:you're saying, we have systems that are all around us where we're part of them.
Tim Winders:And I guess maybe my question related to this is how do we recognize,
Tim Winders:and maybe this is big picture, not just organizationally right now.
Tim Winders:So however you want to respond is fine.
Tim Winders:How do we recognize the systems?
Tim Winders:that are working well for us and the ones that might be inhibiting, success.
Tim Winders:And then my follow up question is going to be some related
Tim Winders:to success and defining that.
Tim Winders:we'll go down that path in just a second, but how do we know what's working
Tim Winders:for us and what's working against us?
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:Broad question.
Josh Fonger:And I think that maybe this is your second question, but I think
Josh Fonger:without knowing what the bullseye is.
Josh Fonger:You don't know, you don't know whether it's working for you or not, right?
Josh Fonger:You could step on the scale in the morning and say, I don't know, 190 pounds.
Josh Fonger:I don't know.
Josh Fonger:Is that working for you or not?
Josh Fonger:Is that the goal?
Josh Fonger:Or is that not the goal?
Josh Fonger:if you're five foot two, maybe that's not the goal, right?
Josh Fonger:If you're six foot six, maybe that is the goal.
Josh Fonger:And I think that you do need to actually set a standard and that is a big part
Josh Fonger:of the initial structure that we do want the visionary involved with is actually
Josh Fonger:saying, Hey, what does success look like?
Josh Fonger:What is the path of success?
Josh Fonger:What does it look like?
Josh Fonger:We help owners with a one page document called a strategic objective.
Josh Fonger:And so if you have that, then at least, are your systems getting you there
Josh Fonger:or are they not getting you there?
Josh Fonger:And this can be for your personal life and you can divide up your personal
Josh Fonger:life in terms of your, your, maybe your health or your finances or your family.
Josh Fonger:And then you would say, gosh, is that we're educating our kids
Josh Fonger:or the way we're eating or the way we're, whatever we're doing.
Josh Fonger:Is it taking us to this goal?
Josh Fonger:And I think without that, then it's very.
Josh Fonger:Frustrating to work on your systems because you don't even
Josh Fonger:know are they helping us get there or not because it's undefined.
Josh Fonger:I think that having some definitions, that can be working definitions, right?
Josh Fonger:you can adjust them, but at least starting with the definition, it's going
Josh Fonger:to ultimately improve your systems.
Tim Winders:That's good.
Tim Winders:So one of our foundational, I guess our tagline here is
Tim Winders:the term redefining success.
Tim Winders:And a lot of what we've done here at Seek Go Create is we've interacted with
Tim Winders:people that have gone through catalytic events that have caused change, or
Tim Winders:they've made some kind of decision to identify what success means to them and
Tim Winders:then go down that path or that process.
Tim Winders:And so I'm curious when people come to you.
Tim Winders:and say, we need to do something differently, would you say it is
Tim Winders:from a place of pain, often, or is it a continuous improvement to use an
Tim Winders:engineering term, or, and it could be a spectrum I'm sure it's a lot of it.
Tim Winders:The reason why is that I've come to.
Tim Winders:To these theories of, in all these interviews and all this
Tim Winders:that I've done, that there are two ways that people make change.
Tim Winders:One is, they make a decision, they go through the process, they bring
Tim Winders:people in like you, they put systems in place, and they make changes.
Tim Winders:Or, They go through some catalytic event, some health challenge, something happens
Tim Winders:to a family member or a head of their team or something like that, that basically
Tim Winders:hits them in the head, and they say, you know what, I need to make a change.
Tim Winders:You don't have to mention any names or anything, but how do people
Tim Winders:come to you in that spectrum?
Tim Winders:Does that make sense?
Tim Winders:Did I ask that well?
Josh Fonger:Yeah, usually it's the catalytic event.
Josh Fonger:and
Tim Winders:theory is holding up.
Josh Fonger:not always.
Josh Fonger:I would say when it's business owners, they, it's almost
Josh Fonger:always a catalytic event.
Josh Fonger:When it's CEOs, then it's more like we developed in our plan that
Josh Fonger:this would be part of it to have a culture of continuous improvement.
Josh Fonger:And therefore, it's Q3 and we're going to do it so that's that wing, but most of
Josh Fonger:the time it's an event, And it's pain and probably three or four clients I've worked
Josh Fonger:with, someone died in their business.
Josh Fonger:And then what do you know?
Josh Fonger:I get called a week later.
Josh Fonger:They might've been on our email list for seven years, wait, now we
Josh Fonger:need to work with you, they always knew they needed to work on this and
Josh Fonger:they always wanted to work on this.
Josh Fonger:But then it became very real because.
Josh Fonger:Hey, no one knows how, what that person did.
Josh Fonger:they're grieving the person who passed away, but we have no
Josh Fonger:idea how they did what they did.
Josh Fonger:And we're having some major issues immediately.
Josh Fonger:We can't keep running a business like that.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:and I hate that because I'm well aware of some, I'll call them proactive
Tim Winders:adjustments, changes that I needed to make in some companies, businesses we had.
Tim Winders:But yet it was a catalytic event that really forced a great deal of change.
Tim Winders:the lifestyle we lead now, being travelers, we probably
Tim Winders:never would have done it.
Tim Winders:We love it.
Tim Winders:We enjoy it.
Tim Winders:It's very nourishing to our soul and we believe it's the
Tim Winders:path God has us on right now.
Tim Winders:And we're not exactly sure why, like you mentioned, you're not sure why God
Tim Winders:has you in the place you're at, but we think we're being prepared for something.
Tim Winders:but we don't believe we would have done that had we not been through
Tim Winders:that catalytic type situation.
Tim Winders:I'm just curious, Josh, I want us to get into some very specifics for the
Tim Winders:leader that's listening in and may want to begin the process or start.
Tim Winders:Thinking about systems and systems mindset.
Tim Winders:And maybe you've got some tips or some ways they can get started and then how
Tim Winders:they can connect with you, of course.
Tim Winders:But I'm curious how you got into being a systems expert.
Tim Winders:And, I love the term architect.
Tim Winders:Cause I think I saw, was your undergrad, were you an architect?
Tim Winders:Person.
Tim Winders:So tell me a little bit about your journey and be prepared.
Tim Winders:I'm going to ask you about a situation where you've had to
Tim Winders:redefine some success in your life.
Tim Winders:So how did you end up being the business systems architect?
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:God's providence.
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:No, I definitely, was not by choice.
Josh Fonger:So I got a degree in architecture, then a master's in business.
Josh Fonger:And I thought I was going to be in real estate.
Josh Fonger:but then 2006 and seven happened and I could not find work anywhere.
Josh Fonger:And, basically during my MBA program, I wrote a paper about why you should
Josh Fonger:not hire business consultants.
Josh Fonger:So I didn't think there was a lot of value in being a business consultant.
Josh Fonger:I thought they were, a waste of money and kind of preyed on, clients.
Josh Fonger:And my due to some family businesses that I heard growing up.
Josh Fonger:They were anti business consultant, I'll put it that way.
Josh Fonger:And, but that was the only job I could get was a business consultant.
Josh Fonger:eventually that's what I had to do.
Josh Fonger:And, during that time period, I think it's kind of God's humor
Josh Fonger:to put me in that position.
Josh Fonger:And, I just really enjoyed the work, had a lot of success with the work,
Josh Fonger:and, was flying around the country, helping small business owners.
Josh Fonger:In this case, they were flooring stores.
Josh Fonger:Carpet Ones and Flooring Americas, Different state all the time, helping
Josh Fonger:them with their inside sales and outside sales and their forecasting
Josh Fonger:and their culture and their budget and helping them through bankruptcy and
Josh Fonger:you name it, just working with these companies inside sales, outside sales.
Josh Fonger:And then, I would, I realized that six months or a year later when I
Josh Fonger:was talking to them, following up the same problems that I thought
Josh Fonger:I solved were coming back again.
Josh Fonger:And I thought, I thought we already fixed that and it kept happening to me and I
Josh Fonger:was in Bend, Oregon, we lived there and I met somebody long story short, they
Josh Fonger:passed the book, work the system to me.
Josh Fonger:Maybe this will help you.
Josh Fonger:And I read the book, met with Sam Carpenter.
Josh Fonger:And then I came to realize that the piece that I was missing in all of
Josh Fonger:my work is that I wasn't documenting the systems and the structure
Josh Fonger:that I was changing the companies.
Josh Fonger:It was more training is more working with the management is
Josh Fonger:more working leader, but then.
Josh Fonger:things dissolve over time, dilute, they don't stick.
Josh Fonger:And I realized that I actually wanted my change to stick and then be built upon.
Josh Fonger:It had to actually be documented into the systems.
Josh Fonger:And so that was a piece I started using my consulting and then, Sam
Josh Fonger:Carpenter and I became good friends.
Josh Fonger:And then I just started working with him as a consultant and then.
Josh Fonger:Here I am today.
Tim Winders:Bend, Oregon, cool spot.
Tim Winders:That was one of the places we spent about three months or so, in our
Tim Winders:travels and Oregon's a neat place.
Tim Winders:so a few things with that.
Tim Winders:I don't know why, but when you mentioned that you proclaimed to the world, your
Tim Winders:distaste for consultants and probably coaches or anybody else that kind
Tim Winders:of, takes money from organizations.
Tim Winders:I thought about the story of Joseph and the Bible and him
Tim Winders:just boldly proclaiming to.
Tim Winders:To his brothers.
Tim Winders:I had a dream and y'all all bowed to me.
Tim Winders:A little bit different story, but it's often that sometimes those
Tim Winders:bold statements we make, they will come back to, humble us.
Tim Winders:I don't know.
Tim Winders:Is that the right term?
Josh Fonger:Yeah, definitely.
Josh Fonger:that was the most humbling period of my life, at least financially
Josh Fonger:and professionally because you get your MBA, you're making good
Josh Fonger:money supporting your family.
Josh Fonger:And we were in Phoenix time.
Josh Fonger:And then to lose it all to have the most that you ever had, lose your
Josh Fonger:house, lose your car, lose everything.
Josh Fonger:And, be living in your In inlaws condo.
Josh Fonger:And you're like, huh, it didn't exactly work out the way I thought
Josh Fonger:it would after I got my MBA, like you just, it's we're gonna start over.
Josh Fonger:And, at that point you, you realize that your identity, really, if you're a
Josh Fonger:Christian is in Christ and that, that.
Josh Fonger:Is the foundation of which you want to build everything off of anyways.
Josh Fonger:And so regardless of what happens to you professionally, it really matters.
Josh Fonger:You can't lose.
Josh Fonger:And I think that, was the necessary shift I needed before
Josh Fonger:making the new career change.
Tim Winders:the way I've said it before for me is that I am very confident
Tim Winders:that God did not bring the downturn or the whatever they call it now
Tim Winders:from 2008 just to get my attention.
Tim Winders:But when it occurred, he took full advantage of it to get my attention.
Tim Winders:It sounds like that period was a real redefining of success, what
Tim Winders:it means to you had some things that were mapped out for you.
Tim Winders:What'd you learn about yourself then?
Tim Winders:Give us a.
Tim Winders:Yeah.
Tim Winders:thing or two that, cause I'm sure you have reflected on it.
Tim Winders:I can guarantee you've reflected on it.
Tim Winders:I have countless others have to, what did you learn about yourself during that time?
Josh Fonger:I haven't reflected on that much, at least not recently,
Josh Fonger:or it's a 2023, but what I reflected on was that the things that
Josh Fonger:matter, it can't be taken from you.
Josh Fonger:So that kind of gave me some resilience there.
Josh Fonger:And also that, God can use all things that he's sovereign.
Josh Fonger:So I got to learn more about God's sovereignty and, his provision,
Josh Fonger:money came from places that were not expected, And, support came
Josh Fonger:from places that weren't expected.
Josh Fonger:And it gave me more confidence in the fact that God will provide and
Josh Fonger:that, I don't have to be afraid of the material, cause he knows what we
Josh Fonger:need before we even know we need it.
Josh Fonger:And.
Josh Fonger:Also, just that, that starting the day with prayer is going to be
Josh Fonger:more important than working hard.
Josh Fonger:there's plenty of people who are in my position in the real estate industry who
Josh Fonger:just thought they could work themselves back into a job that wasn't there.
Josh Fonger:And the job I ended up getting was based on a connection that I made
Josh Fonger:the week after I got laid off.
Josh Fonger:It just took about nine months to materialize.
Josh Fonger:So really if I could have made that one phone call.
Josh Fonger:And, no effort towards finding a job and it was waiting nine months that
Josh Fonger:would have been the same result, right?
Josh Fonger:So all of that toil, all of that stress, all of that, need to find a job, need
Josh Fonger:to, provide for my family, was stressed that I was putting on myself because of
Josh Fonger:my lack of understanding of the future.
Josh Fonger:And, so I was just thankful that I had friends around me who,
Josh Fonger:prayed for me, encouraged me.
Josh Fonger:To not, be stressed and not think that I'm going to, take charge of control
Josh Fonger:my future because really, I could have spent that one phone call and waited nine
Josh Fonger:months and been in the exact same spot.
Tim Winders:The, fascinating thing for me was how I kept.
Tim Winders:Projecting these timing things.
Tim Winders:I had a bill to pay house port house payment or something.
Tim Winders:And so I would tell God, I've got to have blank by whatever.
Tim Winders:And that date would come and go.
Tim Winders:And my realization was maybe.
Tim Winders:His timeframes are different than mine, and I'm not in any way saying,
Tim Winders:don't pay your bills or anything.
Tim Winders:That's not what I'm saying.
Tim Winders:I'm actually saying that I think that his timeframes are different than ours.
Tim Winders:and so I, that was something that was just so interesting to me.
Tim Winders:But the thing that you said earlier, see, this is what jumped at me.
Tim Winders:During that, when you were talking about that, you did say that you were living
Tim Winders:in, I think, in laws or relatives condo.
Tim Winders:and I think we initially make statements like that as if they were a negative.
Tim Winders:And I'm wondering if God considers that a positive.
Tim Winders:You were actually living in homes that you're not paying for, you're
Tim Winders:being taken care of, there's an extra home there that someone has, I
Tim Winders:guess a condo or something like that.
Tim Winders:And I wonder if we have some type of, at times, I know I did.
Tim Winders:Pride or something like that makes those things not as appealing the reason I
Tim Winders:bring it up you may not be aware of this But when we first moved into our what we
Tim Winders:call nomad stage, which some people would call it homeless, but we called it nomad
Tim Winders:because it just sounded better more like sarah and abraham or something like that.
Tim Winders:I don't know But it sounds more biblical, doesn't it?
Tim Winders:Is that, Josh, is what the fascinating thing was, we started house sitting,
Tim Winders:so we were living in houses that we did not pay for, we did not have mortgage
Tim Winders:payments on, they were stocked with food, and I enjoyed a glass of wine every
Tim Winders:once in a while, and some wine cellar, and sometimes they would hand us keys
Tim Winders:to the car when we were in Australia, New Zealand, it was just like, Maybe
Tim Winders:I need to rethink what success means.
Tim Winders:So that kind of helped me redefine it.
Tim Winders:Now, my guess is there was a humility that, that probably if it didn't creep
Tim Winders:in, it barged in to Josh, to your soul, and it probably helps you with what
Tim Winders:you do now, would that be accurate?
Josh Fonger:Yeah, definitely.
Josh Fonger:I think that's essential and that humility is more.
Josh Fonger:I guess more relevant now, after going through and being a consultant during
Josh Fonger:COVID is just the realization, no matter what strategy advice plan that you're
Josh Fonger:coming up with, you don't know the future.
Josh Fonger:And, and then maybe really realized that when I'm working with clients,
Josh Fonger:they're giving me 1%, like a small sliver of what's really going on in
Josh Fonger:the organization during our sessions.
Josh Fonger:And so in order for me to actually accurately assess the situation
Josh Fonger:guidance and help them along their way.
Josh Fonger:I'm gonna need to have wisdom beyond myself.
Josh Fonger:I'm gonna need to have, the ability to, encourage them when
Josh Fonger:they need it, tell them to go get away when they need to hear it.
Josh Fonger:And So I think that just through COVID and through that, realizing that if
Josh Fonger:I'm going to really be useful and successful, it can't be on my own
Josh Fonger:strength and knowledge and wisdom is going to need to come from somewhere else.
Josh Fonger:And so that's really what, It's prompted me to pray more and read less books,
Josh Fonger:pray more and listen to less podcasts, even if there's a great ones is that
Josh Fonger:I, my early, my career when I was in my twenties, I thought if I just read enough
Josh Fonger:books, listen to podcasts, study enough, I would be able to help these companies.
Josh Fonger:And to some degree that, that knowledge is, it's helpful, right?
Josh Fonger:But, ultimately.
Josh Fonger:The kind of the key to my success ultimately is not
Josh Fonger:going to be in those books.
Josh Fonger:It's going to be in, in my community with God, in my praying for my clients
Josh Fonger:and am I giving them the question or the answer, the direction that they actually
Josh Fonger:need to hear today in this moment.
Josh Fonger:And that's something that I knew that was beyond me.
Josh Fonger:And so I think that.
Josh Fonger:That really helped, that really helped, to have some of those things happen to
Josh Fonger:realize, I used to, one more aside, I used to do a lot of projection, a lot of
Josh Fonger:forecasts, people would want me to analyze their finances and project forward and.
Josh Fonger:They were always so confident in the numbers I was producing.
Josh Fonger:I said, your chance of hitting any of these numbers is basically zero.
Josh Fonger:we just took, we took the last couple of years and we put a few algorithms in
Josh Fonger:this net, all of these are conjecture.
Josh Fonger:And so we can't just pretend like this is going to happen.
Josh Fonger:Like we have some goals now, but, I've done enough of these to know
Josh Fonger:that it never happens like that.
Josh Fonger:and so I don't know, I think that's helped me be more real in the day to day
Josh Fonger:with the clients I work with as opposed to, think that, that I know the future.
Tim Winders:I know I'm, I think I'm getting to an age, a place, I don't know
Tim Winders:if that's the right term to piggyback on what you just said, where I'm
Tim Winders:getting less confident in the future.
Tim Winders:And I used to be very, I used to be very confident when I would say things
Tim Winders:about, especially the near future, do this, this happens, this happens by, and
Tim Winders:I do think there's some degree of that.
Tim Winders:And I'm not discounting that at all, but I'm getting more confident in eternity.
Tim Winders:And I think I used to be more confident in the near future than I actually
Tim Winders:was in eternity and I was saved.
Tim Winders:I'm Christian.
Tim Winders:I'm not saying anything, but I think my control, my, the way I was wired,
Tim Winders:I really wanted to be able to know what was going to be happening in the
Tim Winders:very near or not too distant future.
Tim Winders:And what you just said really affirmed that.
Tim Winders:so that was good.
Tim Winders:What are some of the.
Tim Winders:Let's shift a little bit here in the time we've got, because we've got
Tim Winders:people listening in and I'd love for us to give maybe some practical things
Tim Winders:and I know getting the book is helpful because there's a lot of good stuff in
Tim Winders:here, but let's just say that someone has Been somewhat convinced that they
Tim Winders:need more systems in their family, in their church, in their company or in
Tim Winders:their life, whatever, what are just some maybe big picture tips to get started?
Tim Winders:And we know that people can work with you, but just give us some things
Tim Winders:that people need to begin if they've made, if they're leaning that way.
Josh Fonger:I think if I wanted to actually work, I would say start with
Josh Fonger:the simplest system you can think of and one that is happening every day.
Josh Fonger:And one example I like to share is with the church I was working with that, and
Josh Fonger:they had over a thousand volunteers at this particular church they could use.
Josh Fonger:And at the time I was working with the head of the marketing
Josh Fonger:department and, we were talking about the systems in his department.
Josh Fonger:He was putting grommets in a vinyl sign, one of these, events that was
Josh Fonger:coming up and grommets are those little metal circles that you put in vinyl
Josh Fonger:signs to make sure they don't tear.
Josh Fonger:And, you look very busy.
Josh Fonger:And I said, are you the only one at this church who can do that?
Josh Fonger:And he's like, well, you know, I do it a certain way and there's, I'm
Josh Fonger:not sure if anyone will do it right.
Josh Fonger:And, the event's tomorrow and you got to get it done.
Josh Fonger:And I said, don't you guys have a thousand volunteers?
Josh Fonger:He was like, yeah.
Josh Fonger:I said, so we pull out his phone, hit record.
Josh Fonger:I said, now teach.
Josh Fonger:Everyone, how to put a drama in a vinyl sign, cause I'm sure that
Josh Fonger:my, my 14 year old son can do this.
Josh Fonger:And so then he talked and narrated how he did it and I said,
Josh Fonger:okay, now never do that again.
Josh Fonger:Give that to someone who doesn't cost the church any money.
Josh Fonger:And so the whole point is that if you just start with the
Josh Fonger:work you're currently doing.
Josh Fonger:You can document in this case, it was over the video, audio, screen capture,
Josh Fonger:type of a checklist, handwritten note.
Josh Fonger:There are ways to document what you're doing now.
Josh Fonger:And when you do that, you're going to realize that you now have a standard
Josh Fonger:or what good looks like, and you have the ability to transfer the knowledge
Josh Fonger:to someone else for them to do it for you, and for them to innovate and do
Josh Fonger:what you do even better and faster.
Josh Fonger:And Try not to set some big lofty strategy.
Josh Fonger:Like you're going to, change your organization and document foreigner
Josh Fonger:procedures the next month, because I've seen those fail enough
Josh Fonger:times to not even recommend that.
Josh Fonger:I'd rather have them start with something that they are already doing
Josh Fonger:and realize, is there a better way?
Josh Fonger:And oftentimes for leaders, that better way is.
Josh Fonger:Them not doing it at all, right?
Josh Fonger:Because they have to be freed up to expand their organization.
Josh Fonger:And so I always try to first start with leaders, or this case, parents, if you
Josh Fonger:talk about family things, but what are things you're doing every day or every
Josh Fonger:week that actually someone else could do if they just knew how to do it.
Josh Fonger:And let's see if we can get those systems in place and then work towards giving the
Josh Fonger:leaders more time to grow and giving the people beneath them more ability to help.
Tim Winders:One of the things, and my family, if any of them were here,
Tim Winders:they would either laugh or nod or grimace if they heard me say this.
Tim Winders:One of the things I would always say was if there's something that we do
Tim Winders:more than once, we need to consider systematizing it, offloading it,
Tim Winders:delegating it, or something like that.
Tim Winders:This was within our family, too, by the way, which we had our own
Tim Winders:businesses and things like that.
Tim Winders:But the question I was going to ask is why?
Tim Winders:Do people this gets back a little bit back to the mindset but in the
Tim Winders:practical thing too It keeps people from making that leap why was We'll call
Tim Winders:him joe leader Doing those grommets.
Tim Winders:I mean listen, I don't know a lot about putting grommets in things But
Tim Winders:I do not think it requires an advanced grommets And why do people do that?
Tim Winders:Why is it, especially with a thousand volunteers and we know the way
Tim Winders:church world works or even employee world is that, people have a desire
Tim Winders:to be a part of what's going on.
Tim Winders:So what's the psychology behind why Joe Leader wouldn't let
Tim Winders:someone else do that until the consultant told him he needed to.
Josh Fonger:yeah, there's a couple triggers that happen.
Josh Fonger:One is, they are used to doing it.
Josh Fonger:They're comfortable doing it.
Josh Fonger:They've done it a lot of times before.
Josh Fonger:And so I think that part of it is just a comfort level of
Josh Fonger:I've always done it before.
Josh Fonger:And so change would be something different.
Josh Fonger:And that's hard.
Josh Fonger:That's just the human nature.
Josh Fonger:The next thing is, perfectionism as in they know the perfect way.
Josh Fonger:And if they learn that if they give it to someone else, they're
Josh Fonger:going to do it imperfectly.
Josh Fonger:Because they haven't taught them, train them or systemize it.
Josh Fonger:They just handed it off and the results haven't been very good.
Josh Fonger:next reason is that there's a tyranny of the urgent where, because leaders
Josh Fonger:are not thinking weeks and months ahead, they're thinking what needs to be done
Josh Fonger:tomorrow for this event, they haven't utilized the resources that they have.
Josh Fonger:and therefore.
Josh Fonger:Of course they've got to do it.
Josh Fonger:there's no volunteers here.
Josh Fonger:I got to do it.
Josh Fonger:It's tomorrow.
Josh Fonger:And so I think that, that, consistent culture of just reacting to today
Josh Fonger:doesn't allow them to utilize the resources that they have.
Josh Fonger:And so they're not thinking broad enough about it.
Josh Fonger:And and then also, leadership has told them to do the work.
Josh Fonger:And so they do it.
Josh Fonger:As opposed to leadership saying we want you to develop a system to get this work
Josh Fonger:done more effectively doesn't mean you have to do it, but we do need the results.
Josh Fonger:And so they haven't really thought about it differently.
Josh Fonger:So they do need a systems mindset and they do need a leader that will,
Josh Fonger:encourage them along that path.
Josh Fonger:So there's a lot of variables, but, I do see that my.
Josh Fonger:My straight A students, the valedictorians usually have the hardest
Josh Fonger:time with the delegation because they just, they'd like to see the work
Josh Fonger:perfect and have their name on it.
Josh Fonger:And so those are the ones that tend to have a hard time with delegation.
Tim Winders:I love the thought of that perfectionism.
Tim Winders:I see that also, I see it more in others and I also think when you have a spiritual
Tim Winders:either a leader who has a spiritual foundation or in a spiritual organization,
Tim Winders:we'll call it, some type of that.
Tim Winders:There's also this sacrificial component that comes in people.
Tim Winders:People believe and I'm going to exaggerate a little bit with this statement.
Tim Winders:I'm doing this for God.
Tim Winders:God's going to love me more because I am hate to pick on the grommet guy.
Tim Winders:I'm putting these grommets in.
Tim Winders:And so this is.
Tim Winders:Positioning me for the afterlife better.
Tim Winders:again, a lot of highly exaggerative statements there, sometimes the
Tim Winders:spiritual can help and then sometimes it can, and can be damaging there.
Tim Winders:Let's keep going though.
Tim Winders:did you wanna respond to that at
Josh Fonger:I, yeah, so yeah, the nonprofits I work with and the churches
Josh Fonger:I worked with, that is a very real thing.
Josh Fonger:And burnout's a very real thing and they overwork way beyond what they need to.
Josh Fonger:And, but yet they, complain about it and the results are not great because
Josh Fonger:they are overworked and they don't.
Josh Fonger:Understand that, that they're bearing too much of the burden themselves.
Josh Fonger:So that, that's extremely common.
Josh Fonger:And, I haven't, maybe you've thought about it more than I have, but
Josh Fonger:that's just for profit businesses.
Josh Fonger:it's five o'clock.
Josh Fonger:They're gone.
Josh Fonger:they're not like, I'll stay late to serve the kingdom.
Josh Fonger:No, they're clicking, they're checking out.
Josh Fonger:So it's very different.
Tim Winders:or, Alright, so I'll call it, Joe leader that was doing the grommets.
Tim Winders:He comes to the realization that this needs to be done, and maybe in the time
Tim Winders:we've got another, time for a tip or two.
Tim Winders:so they are beginning moving in that direction, and they're starting
Tim Winders:with those simple, small, something to get some systems in place.
Tim Winders:What are some of the next steps?
Tim Winders:What are some of the hurdles or something?
Tim Winders:just give us something practical here as we begin to wrap up that might be helpful
Tim Winders:for someone listening in and they've been listening to our conversation.
Josh Fonger:So instead of going big picture, I always
Josh Fonger:ask people to get granular.
Josh Fonger:What are all the things that you do throughout the entire day?
Josh Fonger:this can be from the second you wake up to the second you
Josh Fonger:go to bed and isolate those.
Josh Fonger:And it's very tedious and not fun, but time track them.
Josh Fonger:And you're going to realize that your day is made up of these discreet separate
Josh Fonger:packets of stuff that you're doing, hopefully productive, hopefully useful.
Josh Fonger:And the goal is to number one.
Josh Fonger:Eliminate the ones that are not useful, not serving you, not
Josh Fonger:taking you where you want to go.
Josh Fonger:Usually that frees up some time.
Josh Fonger:And the next goal is going to be taking the separate system in this
Josh Fonger:case, putting comments in a sign and realizing, Hey, if I document the
Josh Fonger:system, someone else could do it.
Josh Fonger:I'm going to work on that system to make it so I can hand that off to someone else.
Josh Fonger:And so if they work on those two things.
Josh Fonger:That's going to give them a lot of time back.
Josh Fonger:And then lastly, it's the systems that you're already doing every
Josh Fonger:single day, that you have to do.
Josh Fonger:And it's, can you do it better?
Josh Fonger:Can you do it faster?
Josh Fonger:I was working with this series of hearing aid centers and they do this.
Josh Fonger:hearing assessment that they have all their new patients come in and do a
Josh Fonger:hearing assessment takes 90 minutes.
Josh Fonger:I just challenged them.
Josh Fonger:I said, can it be done faster?
Josh Fonger:Can it be done better?
Josh Fonger:Can it be done at a higher quality?
Josh Fonger:Can it be done at a higher close rate?
Josh Fonger:Can it be done at a higher average transaction?
Josh Fonger:And lo and behold, that can actually be done in 45 minutes,
Josh Fonger:not an hour and a half.
Josh Fonger:If they just took the time and they're doing these things every single day in
Josh Fonger:nine locations to analyze the system and document it and script it out, they
Josh Fonger:can actually get better and faster.
Josh Fonger:But they were just so used to doing it the same way.
Josh Fonger:Cause they've been doing it that way for 10 years.
Josh Fonger:And so I think that first thing is make a list of all the things you do during
Josh Fonger:the day, as tedious as that might be.
Josh Fonger:And you're going to realize that once you look at the separate pieces that make up
Josh Fonger:your life, there's better ways to do them.
Josh Fonger:There's faster ways to do them.
Josh Fonger:There's shorter ways, lower cost ways to use technology automation.
Josh Fonger:And that's the fun stuff for me is being able to look at what people do
Josh Fonger:and say, I know it's a better way.
Josh Fonger:I know it was a faster way.
Josh Fonger:I know it's a more impactful way.
Josh Fonger:And.
Josh Fonger:Oftentimes, they don't believe me at first because they say, I've been doing this a
Josh Fonger:long time, but they're almost always is
Tim Winders:one question I was going to ask, do you do time studies at all?
Tim Winders:One of the things I used to do this more often now I don't do it as much as I'll
Tim Winders:ask executive leader, someone to, block out and determine what they're doing every
Tim Winders:15 or 30 minutes or something like that.
Tim Winders:One of our challenges now though, is that we have these things.
Tim Winders:That are consuming so much and people think they've got no time and all of
Tim Winders:that, but do you do some time studies at all just to see, because sometimes people
Tim Winders:fool themselves in what they think they're doing and what they're really doing.
Josh Fonger:people definitely do that.
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:so we do track time and we do analyze that.
Josh Fonger:one thing that my wife turned me on to and then a client as
Josh Fonger:well as, having a light phone.
Josh Fonger:So hence.
Josh Fonger:I don't think I've checked the news in over two years, or social media.
Josh Fonger:you mentioned something that might be on my LinkedIn profile.
Josh Fonger:I wouldn't know.
Josh Fonger:I haven't been there.
Josh Fonger:and it's been part of my concerted effort to get back as much of my
Josh Fonger:mental space as possible so that I can truly be effective and efficient.
Josh Fonger:In the roles that I have as, a business consultant and as a father and as a
Josh Fonger:husband and just do that well before I dilute myself because I spent enough
Josh Fonger:years diluting myself into so many other paths, just really trying to
Josh Fonger:stay focused on those and then with.
Josh Fonger:with a stronger core, dapple in other areas as it makes strategic
Josh Fonger:sense, like this right here.
Josh Fonger:and so I, I do think that, when people are being honest with me, which most people
Josh Fonger:are not 100% honest, there's a lot of waste of time and a lot of frenetic time,
Josh Fonger:a lot of checking this, watching that, consuming this, reading this, and it's
Josh Fonger:all of those packets of information that you could have used for rest or reflection
Josh Fonger:or, community building, relationship building, management time that instead
Josh Fonger:was consumed with, candy, right?
Josh Fonger:Digital candy, and it's not making you healthy.
Josh Fonger:It's not making you think better.
Josh Fonger:And, in the information age that we're in, maybe 20 years
Josh Fonger:ago, it might not be the case.
Josh Fonger:But now the issues that the leaders I work with.
Josh Fonger:Is not, they don't have the information.
Josh Fonger:They have way too much information.
Josh Fonger:It is, it's just, they're not implementing the right information right now.
Josh Fonger:And one person said, Josh, why did it cost so much?
Josh Fonger:And I said, it's not because.
Josh Fonger:Of, you're not going to get me to expound the last 500 books I've read
Josh Fonger:or podcast or all I'm going to be doing during our sessions is really just
Josh Fonger:hopefully telling you exactly what you need to hear the one idea or the one
Josh Fonger:question that you need to hear right now to help you fix your business.
Josh Fonger:In this case, she has a nonprofit, to expand and that's where the value
Josh Fonger:is me being able to discern what it is that you need to hear and what
Josh Fonger:systems you have to work on that.
Josh Fonger:That's the value.
Josh Fonger:Not in volume of ideas, but on the idea and the way to implement
Josh Fonger:the one idea that's going to take you the next step further.
Josh Fonger:And so I think that there's, there's a, there's the lie of, knowledge
Josh Fonger:is power, but, What does it say?
Josh Fonger:I was his knowledge puffs up, but, love builds up.
Josh Fonger:And ultimately we need people to apply, exactly what they
Josh Fonger:need in their circumstances and nothing more and nothing less.
Josh Fonger:And, I really try to help people move towards that direction.
Tim Winders:And I think there's so much that you do that probably
Tim Winders:helps people gain clarity and.
Tim Winders:Create.
Tim Winders:I heard someone, it was on one of the interviews I did, they said
Tim Winders:that most, all of us really in today's world need more white space.
Tim Winders:We need less stuff consuming us.
Tim Winders:And I believe, and I think you would agree, it's so we
Tim Winders:can hear the voice of God.
Tim Winders:we need to be still, quiet, Sabbath, Shalom, rest, whatever.
Tim Winders:Term.
Tim Winders:we could use practical terms or spiritual terms.
Tim Winders:We need to be still and quiet, and I believe part of the value of systems and
Tim Winders:structure is it allows us to then be still and quiet so that we can hear from God.
Tim Winders:Now, the thing I love about what you're doing, I think I get to do a little bit of
Tim Winders:it too, is I think we're maybe one extra.
Tim Winders:Opportunity for people to hear that when we're in the room or sitting at
Tim Winders:the table or on the call with people and I can tell just from your heart,
Tim Winders:your mindset, your approach that you bring that piece that shalom into
Tim Winders:the room when you come there and I think that's, I think that's valuable.
Tim Winders:with all of this, where would you want someone if they
Tim Winders:wanted to connect with you?
Tim Winders:It sounds like they're not going to jump on social media necessarily and find you.
Tim Winders:But I know you've got to have some ways that people can get
Tim Winders:in touch with you, find you.
Tim Winders:and, we've got the book that we both have mentioned that I
Tim Winders:think is a valuable resource.
Tim Winders:What else do you want people to do if they need to connect with you?
Josh Fonger:Yeah.
Josh Fonger:I just tell them go to WTSenterprises.Com.
Josh Fonger:So WTS stands for work the system, which is what, everything I do is based on.
Josh Fonger:And of course you can get the summary of this book work the system.
Josh Fonger:if you're a reader, get the book, if you want something faster, you can get the
Josh Fonger:summary at my website, WTSenterprises.Com.
Josh Fonger:And then for those who want to help, then that's what I do.
Josh Fonger:the coaching and consulting.
Tim Winders:And just to clarify, Sam wrote the book and, but he does
Tim Winders:not do any of the consulting coaching and you are the sole, I don't know
Tim Winders:if the right term is licensee or sole representative for this process.
Tim Winders:Is that correct?
Tim Winders:Correct me if I'm wrong on that.
Josh Fonger:yeah, definitely.
Josh Fonger:So over the last 10 years, initially as an employee of Sam's and then,
Josh Fonger:we branched out over the years to him, being the figurehead of
Josh Fonger:me doing more of the consulting.
Josh Fonger:And now I do all the consulting.
Josh Fonger:he's enjoying, Owning his business, but only having to work a couple
Josh Fonger:hours a month owning his business.
Josh Fonger:So he's in his mid seventies.
Josh Fonger:And we still do events together.
Josh Fonger:We still talk every week.
Josh Fonger:he's been a great mentor to me and a business advisor, but,
Josh Fonger:yeah, I do all the consulting.
Tim Winders:Excellent.
Tim Winders:thank you.
Tim Winders:We'll make sure we include where to find you and get the
Tim Winders:book and all down in the notes.
Tim Winders:Josh, we are seek, go create those three words.
Tim Winders:I'm gonna let you pick one of those words over the other two as my last question.
Tim Winders:And just why'd you pick the word seek, go or create?
Josh Fonger:I, yeah, the one that, that rings the bell to me would be create.
Josh Fonger:And that's because I guess that's what I do, Help people create
Josh Fonger:systems or create order out of chaos.
Josh Fonger:And I think that instead of.
Josh Fonger:People living in maybe the chaotic or we'll just call it the frustrating
Josh Fonger:world that we live in because it's a broken world, that they should take
Josh Fonger:part in creating something better.
Josh Fonger:And the best way is to analyze those separate systems and make them better.
Tim Winders:Excellent.
Tim Winders:Josh, thank you so much for this conversation.
Tim Winders:I've enjoyed it.
Tim Winders:And there were some directions we went in that I was not sure we would.
Tim Winders:I'm thankful that we did.
Tim Winders:I appreciate, all that you had to share.
Tim Winders:And I know that people will understand and hopefully, follow up on the value of
Tim Winders:systems, get the book, reach out to you.
Tim Winders:I'll also ask.
Tim Winders:If someone's listening in, share this episode.
Tim Winders:I think there's been some value to just understanding the importance
Tim Winders:of structure, creating order out of chaos and, and making it fit in this
Tim Winders:odd and chaotic world that we're in.
Tim Winders:So thanks again, Josh.
Tim Winders:We have new episodes every Monday until next time, continue being
Tim Winders:all that you were created to be.