Brave Men S1E12: Ed Preston - Ed's Laws of Leadership Pt 1

It's Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole, wisdom and courage for the journey. Brave Men starts now. I'm sitting with Ed Preston here in the studios, CMN studios, and I'm excited to hear what you call what? Ed's... ...laws of leadership. Ed's laws of leadership. We talked in a previous podcast, and on Achieve Lab, we talked about your testimony. How you went from being an executive, driving a logging truck, God began to change your heart. You were listening, putting the word of God in your life. And then how many years ago did you start this major restaurant corporation that you had up now? December, this past December was 20 years old. 20 years. That 20-year run of building a major corporation out of that, you've synthesized some things to share with us in terms of business and life really, a lot of this has to do with just how we live our lives. So let's get right into Ed's laws of leadership, so Ed Preston, what's one of the first things you want to share with us? Well, the first thing I want to share is I probably share this more with the leadership in the company. Some of them thinks it's Ed's famous word is called Anthropy. Anthropy? Yes. And if you look up in the dictionary, it's basically that anything left unattended will turn to crises. Wow. Anything left unattended will turn to crises. It will become a crisis. Now it applies to business, it applies to employees, it applies to marriage, it applies to parenting. Yes, it does. It applies to any aspect of your life. And then probably the second thing that I deal, that I try to teach our leaders is like the 80-20 rule, everybody's heard of the 80-20 rule. But I kind of like to base it on that the 20% is what I call critical factors. If you can master the critical factors or the 20% and the 80% will basically fall into line under that, which I call the technical parts. So the 20% then is what, the basic, getting the basic foundation that we run a business on. Okay. The basics. So in a restaurant business, that would be as people walk up, how you greet them. Exactly. How you treat them, how they're attended to, you know, and then all the things that surround it. Like as the building cleaners are presentable, it's a parking lot in shape. And are the employees dressed properly, and is the food being prepared properly as it's sent to the table properly. Those are what I call critical factors, those are the basics. Those are the basics, critical factors. So that could apply to marriage. It could apply to a church, if you're a pastor or a leader in church, the presentation, how people are treated, if people are friendly, organizational, and I think it's true and marriage too. You need to be friendly. We're going to touch on that here in a minute. Okay. And so, yes, and so then one day I just started, I was on a long flight and I just started jotting down some of the things and some of them are comical and some are real and some of them are... But all of these are things you've learned, and these are things that I basically have really had your entire career over the entire career. Because when you are in the corporate world, the reason you burned out and left is because the corporate world chewed you up. Right. So you had to readjust some things you learned, and so what we're going to get now is a synthesis of that. Right. What's one of the next ones? Well, like I said, there are some comical things and one of them, we start out as kind of a comical, like leadership, as like a casserole. Only those responsible for putting each together knows what goes into it. You know, and like people will say to me once in a while, how did you come up with this idea? Well, it just came... It's just part of me. Yeah. You know, I'm the one that figured out what goes into that thought and what goes into that process. Yeah. So, also leadership incorporates equal parts of patient, passion, and performance. Okay. Say that again in the three things. Yeah. Leadership incorporates equal parts of patients, passion, and performance. Patience. Patience. Again, and those can be, again, part of the critical factors. Okay. Okay, and your leadership skills. You know, and this is not really a point, but it was a thought that I wrote down leadership as a skill, so complex, that a simple Google search reveals over a million pages on the topic. Wow. Wow. And I thought, well, that's astronomical. Maybe I could pick a few out of that, that I could apply to that, my life, and apply to business. So, patients, why did you put patients first? Well, I think the reason I put patients first is because most of my life, I've been an impatient person, and building a business, the way God wanted me to build, and it required a lot of patients, which also included allowing him to teach me, and I had to be patient in that. Well, and that. And you talked about, in the previous, when we did the other taping about your testimony, we talked about getting quiet, getting to a place where you could pray, listen to the Lord. We have a great friend, George Nishamura, who runs a major corporation in Brazil, heads up the University of the family, and Christian and his network there. George told me one time he said, when he gets to his office early in the morning, he has blocked out on his calendar, time to think. Time to think. We really, he says, yes, that is one of my jobs. He says, is to get quiet, pray, think, listen to the Lord, let the wisdom fill my life. He says, then I begin to act on that. So, patients is first, because we're particularly a business owner or administrator or somebody who's trying to make some things happen. We get impatient. Right. And that's part of my life, too. I never schedule anything in the morning, because the first two hours of each day, I do that. Really? Condor, meditate, I read the scriptures, I, you know, I try to identify a scripture or a thought of the thing that I'm going to face or have to take care of that day. And so that is a big part. So you have a daily ritual routine, right, that helps, that's foundational for your life. Right. I never schedule anything for the first two hours that I'm awake, and that's what I do each morning, because it's crisp, it's quiet. Now for some means, for some of us, what that means is, we actually going to have to wake up a little earlier. Yes, earlier, you know. And equal parts, I was talking about patient, passion, and performance. If we, we're always trying to identify in our leadership if they have the passion to do this, I call it often, I call it the fire in the belly. You know, if we're, if we're dealing with mediocre people that don't have the fire in the belly, if they're there just for the payday, just to get a job or so forth, it doesn't really fit into our criteria. And then the patients and the passion will always equal performance, and their ability to perform the dance. So performance isn't number one for you? No. No. I have it listed, patience, passion, and performance. Or then performance, either way. Ed's laws of leadership. Yeah, there's a variety of different points on the topic of leadership. Quotes that I've come up with. Yeah. Okay. And I'll share some of those with you. And I've got them numbered, you know, everybody likes to have numbers. Yeah. And so I like to do numbers too, from time to time. Like number one, and these are my quotes, okay. If you are at the top of the ladder, cover your butt. If you're at the bottom, cover your face. I think that originated when I was with the big corporations. This is a corporate study. But it's also blended into my own company, which has really been effective. And it's true whether you're on a baseball team or working in a corporation, whatever it is. And it's also very helpful when you're training up a management also. All right. And what do you mean by that? What do I mean by that? That there's always obstacles that's going to be in your way. Always. Also, try to learn when obstacles come, how to protect yourself, how to believe in yourself. And don't let someone else railroad you or run over you. Because when you get, you know, people are always wanting, you know, we call it the top. But in other words, you get in a place of leadership, authority. There's always going to be people who are talking about you or trying to discount what you do or basically being an obstacle, right? And you have to know that you know what you're doing is the right thing. Yeah. If you know what you're doing and you know that the outcome is going to be a plus, then you can set a lot of that aside, but still listen to the point if it's something that you can change with. People that have the power to fix something do not know what is wrong. The people that knows what's wrong don't have the power to fix it. So that would come into teamwork. Yeah. You know, listen to your subordinates, listen to your management. And you know, because we don't have all the great ideas, you know, maybe a just a minimum wage labor will have some good ideas. So we train ourselves to listen to people. So you listen, you're in a restaurant business, so as an example, you've got a bus boy. And when he says, you know, we should do something different here, you listen to that. That's not always the way we think about that, is it? We think if we're, we get in leadership, we get the pressure of, we have to know everything. Yeah. At least one or two items on our menu has come from a dishwasher, really, you know, that they like food also. Well, of course. They have taste variances in their, you know, in their taste buds or whatever you call them. Yeah. So, right. So we listen to people. Number three is work hard, have fun, no drama. You know, drama is a killer, drama is a killer. You know, sometimes drama is, well, who cares? Yeah. Yeah. You know, that's not drama. But this thing into a lot of drama, let's figure out how to fix it. So sometimes drama isn't somebody actually causing something, it's somebody who actually withdraws from trying to be part of the team, creates a drama. My son has a saying, if it's not broken, don't fix it. If it's not broken, don't fix it. Right. In other words, usually if something is not broke, but you want to fix it, we'll create drama in some way or another. So go through that again. Number three. No drama. Work hard. Have fun. No drama. Have fun. No drama. Enjoy what you're doing. Find a way to enjoy the talent of the team. How important is that? It's very important, especially with morale attitudes in the business. We talk a lot about attitudes will always flow into the customer. Well, so people will pick up your attitudes. People will pick up attitudes as quickly more than anything. Doesn't matter what kind of business you're doing. But let me ask you this. You talk about love what you do and that kind of thing. What if I'm in a job because I need a job to provide for my family? I don't really love it, but I know I need to do it. How do I handle that? With the attitude aspect, well, you have to concentrate on the pluses of the job or what makes you feel good about it. And then you have to build off of those, find the things that are right about it, not the things are wrong about it, and develop from that aspect. So I'll be looking at it, let's say, and I'm thinking, OK, I'm blessing my family, helping my kids, in other words, God's giving me this in order to do that. And it's a great thing just to have the knowledge in your mind that you're producing. Number four, whatever it is that hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. I've heard that one before from you. You shared that in a couple of meetings. You know, I've been dealing with that all my life, you know. Whatever hits the fan will not be evenly distributed. Exactly. Can I hear an amen? Yeah, you know, he might get more of the effect of that than he gets the effect of that. It's not always. So when drama or crisis happens, it's what we're talking about. I may feel it more than the guy next to me. Right. Right. And then they either will take that as a critique, or they might take it as something that's unfair. Boy, that's a good one right there. And we can get that way real quick, we can't say constructive criticism. And it's getting hit and that guy has nothing's happening to him. Yeah. So that's an attitude check right there. It's not going to be evenly distributed. We're all going to have different times and different things hit us. Different moods and so forth. So that's even true in a marriage, right? I mean, well, these leadership factors involves everything about your life. It's not just a job or a business or a profession. When you talk leadership, you and I know, and I want to make sure that we predicate this for everybody listening or watching, leadership is predicated on serving others, right? You're only qualified to lead to the degree you're willing to serve. Jesus didn't teach leadership. He taught servant ship. He taught servanthood, right? And so when we talk about laws of leadership, it's not about trying to be above. It's actually what you're talking about there is actually about serving others and having the right attitude, the right of firing a belly. That's not just about me being up above telling everybody what to do. It's about me serving others so that everybody becomes successful. Successful is not a bad word, is it? It's not my world. I mean, I've tried unsuccessful. Successful is much better. Success is much better. You know, but the fact is, because here's my thing, Ed, it feels like sometimes we say, oh man, this guy is really trying to be successful as if it's ungodly. And yet, isn't business about actually trying to build something? I mean, if you're not successful, it doesn't work. Right. You know, and it's about the same, same old thing, you know, being successful is like from the world system, you know, to get all you can, as fast as you can, no matter who you take down to get there, you know, where the kingdom system is to love, you know, to benefit people, to think of people more than you think of yourself. You know, I like to say it's people more than profit. Wow. You know, so you're your drive, you're passion, you're firing a belly for success. Okay. Isn't just about, hey, look at the car I bought. No, that's a byproduct. That's a byproduct. It's really about what I'm able now to do. I'm able to do to help others, you know, I, my biggest drive is to help ministries or to help other people. And, you know, the nice car is nice. Yeah. You know, I made a statement one day in one of the meetings that we were doing in a men's meeting, I says, you know, beyond popular belief to have a million dollars in the bank is not really what it's cracked up to be. Because it takes more responsibility, it takes more attitude, it takes, you know, you feel more pressure. Yeah, because you can lose it as fast as you get it. It goes fast. I mean, you only have to look at some of the athletes and so forth. Right. Pay the large amount of money in three years after they're in the NFL or something they're bankrupting. Right. Well, what is it? The statistics, most lottery winners are broken three years or more than, yeah, or less or, yeah. And so, because they don't have the proper perspective and the proper attitude and the mindset to manage that. So, true success isn't just about numbers. It's really becoming what God designed you to be. Right. Self-worth. Hmm. You know, the ability to lay your head on the pillow at night and enjoy a good night's sleep instead of what we are trying to do right now. I lost the numbers. Yeah. We were five now. Yeah, we're around five years. This is quite lengthy, but it's good. And I think this derived from when I worked for the big corporations when the boss would blow in, blow up and blow out and just leave you there standing there naked and raw. And so, I wrote this down of all the people who will never leave you. God is the only one that will not. Hmm. Okay. Companies with an enthusiastic tenured workforce or more profitable because it costs less to manage them. And that comes under the people over profit thing again. Yeah, I want to finish this episode with that because people over profit. You've practiced that and yet you've made a great profit. Right. Because you've invested in people. So, when you have a company whose workforce stays longer, it's less expensive to manage it. Right. One of the most expensive aspects of the business that I am in is training new people. Hmm. And because you spend lots of money training a person and you don't know if they're going to be there tomorrow or not. So they can turn into a very expensive thing for your company. So, when you have, let's do real thing here. When you have a server that's working in a restaurant as a company, when you get a new person and you know it's going to cost you $5,000, $10,000 of training, time and effort and everything else. So if you have to replace that person, is that sound right? Yeah, it's another $5,000, $10,000. Every time. Every time. So, investing in that person. Investing in the person. I don't think a lot of us think about that. And that's really smart. And then the thing you started with reminds me of Psalm 46 where God says, He says, I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. Even when the storms come. And you've had some storms in your business. It hasn't just gone all like this, right? Yeah, we've had our share. Yeah, we just finished a lawsuit. Did you really? Okay. So those things happen. And you know, if the leadership develops poor attitude over that, then it always flows into your help into the customer. So really, what anchors you is that you know that God's not going to forsake you. And He's going to give me the strategy to move beyond it. So you're faith in God. In other words, you can pray over your business. You can ask God for a strategy. And you feel, in your senses, that's what God's done for you in this corporation. Right. That's amazing. Ed Preston, thanks for being with us on this episode. And I can't wait to get the whole rest of it in the next segment. All right. You've just experienced Brave Men with Paul Lewis Cole. Paul is president of the Global Fatherhood Initiative. Connect with Paul at BraveMen.Men. That's BraveMen.Men. You