In this magnetic episode, Dr. Tom Lutz, Author of Equipping Christians for Kingdom Purpose in Their Work, shares why the best business leaders need a coach more than anybody else and the power of peer groups to accelerate your growth as a leader.
Scott Ritzheimer
Hello, everybody. Hello and welcome. Welcome to another episode of the Secrets of the High Demand Coach podcast. And I’m here with a dear friend and another one of my coaches, Tom Lutz actually Dr. Tom Lutz. Tom is again, just a very dear friend. He’s been one of my closest confidants over the last couple of years and leeds a fantastic group of men, in business leaders that I get to be part of in Convene, a fantastic organization. And time, you’re welcome to share as much about that as you’d like. But what we’re really doing is here to hear your story. I want to hear how you got into coaching, why and what it is that you do for the clients you work with?
Dr. Tom Lutz
How did I get into coaching? It certainly wasn’t intentional. My background was I was a pastor for six or seven years in inner city of Baltimore. I had at the time, a couple of friends who were starting a business. And then they said, why don’t you come work for us, we’ll give you we’ll accommodate your time to allow you to continue to do the work in the church. And then, you know, we’ll see where it went from there.
I just absolutely loved being in the business. You know, it just it was what I was, I tell people what I was put on the earth for. And I tell my pastor friends as a several years as a pastor, God called me to the ministry and that ministry was in the marketplace. Yeah, I love doing business. It’s it. I won’t go into the details of it. But we grew it from zero to 1800 employees in 18 countries over a space of about 20 years. And then we sold it in the year 2000.
So it’s been now 22 years. I am now longer out of that, that I was in it, but 22 years ago, and it was sold. And then it was kind of like, you know, I went to coaches that I had at the time and just tried to figure out well, what do you do. I’m in my mid 40s? You know, I’ve got a good bit of money in the bank. I want to find something meaningful that will use the talents God’s given me.
And I heard a little talk by Bob Biehl. And he, he basically said, he challenged the listener, he said, Go and ask your four or five closest friends? What do I do best? When, as you experience me, what do I do best? What is my single greatest strength. And then I also kind of look back on the 20 plus years, you know, since I became an adult, I finished graduate school, etc. And I basically looked back and I said, you know, what I do best is sit down with someone who’s got a vision to get somewhere. Someone like Scott Ritzheimer, who is in the process of starting his own business, and sit down with a blank sheet of paper and just start sketching out plans. You know, and it’s what I love to do. It’s I think it’s it’s my primary skill set.
I have a life mission. And that life mission says God has gifted called and positioned me to help visionaries, find, plan and execute their role in his kingdom. And so as I began, you know, again, 22 years ago, I began to realize, what’s the next period of life going to look like? And it basically just became, I gotta go out and find people who are passionate about a vision. And, you know, the EOS world, for example, you know, you they talk about the visionary, and the integrator, right, I guess, you know, I play an integrator role for a lot of people, or maybe a, in between those two, somewhere between the visionary and the integrator, helping the visionary to put some wheels on the plan. It’s so nice.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Because we, you know, it’s, it’s one thing to kind of have the vision. It’s another thing when the vision, you know, hits the road, yeah, hits the pavement, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, whoa, hold on a second. There’s just this whole other side of it. And what was so clear stops being that clear, right? There’s about 19 different versions of it. But the most popular one now, I think was, was Muhammad Ali, I could be getting that wrong, but it’s actually an ancient phrase. But, you know, every plan, you know what I’m gonna say, you know, everyone has a plan to get punched in the face, right? That phrase, if I remember correctly, dates way back to a war monger in China or something along those lines, but yeah, maybe? Yes. Work rep. That sounds right. And so to have someone who can come alongside, oftentimes we can’t afford employee number two, right? out of the gate. Correct? Right? You can’t, you can’t just jump into some high caliber person, especially someone who’s already been down this road and knows what it looks like, who can help get through that process of putting the vision to paper, putting the paper to practice and making it happen? I love that. I love how you do that.
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah, yeah. All right. That’s great. I don’t know who the quote is from either, but I’ve heard that before that. Oh, geez. Now now, what do I do? There’s another similar phrase is I think this was from General Patton. It says. Every great battle plan falls apart after 10 minutes on the battlefield. Right? Same concept.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah, it’s so true. So tell us a little bit then about what that looks like. So you’ve talked about helping visionaries and putting that into practice helping them find execute on their vision? What does that look like? And why would something like that matter to you know, our average listener, founder and leader of an organization themselves? Sure, sure.
Dr. Tom Lutz
I convene has a phrase that says the only game in town where every player has 12 coaches. I don’t, I used to do a lot more one on one, you know, personal coaching. Right now I’m sort of semi retired, I work about 1520 hours a week I facilitate to convene groups in Atlanta. But it’s just hard. It’s hard to know, what you don’t know. Right? You know, we’ve got, you’re a very talented person, I’m over talented because all the members of your convening group are talented people. And they’ve gotten to where they’ve gotten based on the strengths that they’ve got. But those strengths is what they’ve got. And there’s lots of blind spots.
I have a funny story, I tell them a golfer, as you probably know. And I was out playing golf with my oldest son, Mason, hit a ball off the tee box, which for golfers made understand, but a slice is a ball that cuts to the right. And so now my ball is in has been hit with a slice that made it bend to the right and it’s in the woods. And I’m standing there with a long iron, haven’t hit it about 170 yards, but I have to hit it in such a fashion that it goes forward and left. Okay, so that’s called, that’s what we call a draw. And my son Mason pulls up in the golf cart, and he sees what I’m trying to do.
He says, Dad, what is it about your current lie that makes you believe you can make that shot?
I said, Son, you’re right, I knocked the ball out, then, you know, hit it up on the green.
But that’s that’s what you see, that’s I didn’t have the self awareness. In that situation, to say, I’m not going to succeed at this. I’m not going to I needed a coach who happened to be my son at that time, who is a much better golfer than I am, I needed a coach to, to put a check in my brain asked me a simple question.
You know, what is it about your current lie? Obviously, you’ve hit the ball, and it’s gone. Right? That makes you believe you can hit a ball that far again, and go left. And of course, he was right, I’ve got an outside perspective. And it, it helped me to succeed. Whereas had I just proceeded, I probably would have failed. Yeah. And that’s one of the biggest challenges with with having the humility to accept a coach is to recognize that you have shortcomings, you have areas in which you need help. And a coach, you know, in my case, you know, coaching people, I’ve see major victories occur when they listen to the group on an issue and change the direction that they, in their own mind had convinced themselves they should be going. Yeah.
Scott Ritzheimer
And so just to clarify that, for the listener, the model that you use is almost exclusively group coaching. Right?
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah, precisely. So I at this point, work with Convene. Convene is a national organization, there’s about 60 or 70. We call ourselves chairs, I’m a chairman of the of the CEO roundtable. And a lot of those other you know, they are want to work more full time. So they do a lot of personal coaching. I have done it. I do a lot of informal personal coaching. I teach at a seminary here. And so there’s a mentoring role with students and that sort of stuff, but my primary for pay. Coaching is is in CEO roundtable groups and as you know, the way that works is we meet as a team, you know, 12 people or 15 people in the room, and then I sit down with each of them individually. So, to that degree, there is individual coaching. But it’s always within the context of facilitating the group to better help to better help the member. Convenient, has a phrase that says, we connect, equip and inspire Christian CEOs and business owners to run excellent companies and become high impact leaders to honor God.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s good. I’m curious to hear this. Because, you know, I think I know this from some of the other members. But what is it that you find folks tend to try and do before joining Convene?
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah. I’ll tell you a story. I won’t tell you who it is. But it was a a member or a potential member that had reached out to me through LinkedIn, I believe, years ago. And we got together and we were talking about it. He said, Okay. My year last year was pretty good, except I had this one major project that just went off the rails, it costs me a lot of money. And as soon as I get that all cleaned up, I’ll join convenience.
Six months later, a year later, I sat down that same person over a cup of coffee. And what does he say to me, I’m almost ready to join. But I just I had a big project that went off the rails. And as soon as I get that cleaned up, I’m going to join, literally the third, third conversation another six, eight months later. You know, I’m really excited, I want to join, convene, but I just had another project go off the rails. And as soon as I get that mess cleaned up, I’m going to join can be, and I definitely I confronted him. And I said his name? What is it about your current life that leads you to believe you can make that shot, I said, I’m not gonna let you do this, again, I’m not gonna let you I don’t want to talk to you a year from now. And you tell me the same pattern. At a big project off the rail. I said, You need to come join the group, I need to advise you, the group needs to advise you, we need to figure out how to never have a bad project again.
And he kind of looked at me and he said, Wow, is that possible? I said, Well, it’s more possible with a coaching relationship and a group of peers that are working with than it is for you to try to do it yourself. Yeah, that’s so true. And that’s what so people almost, they want to feel like they’re competent to join the group. When the whole point is, I don’t need competent people. Right? If you’re competent, you don’t need the group. But none of us are competent. We need the group.
Scott Ritzheimer
I think tying in to that one of the things that I’ve found, particularly in your group is how much we learned from our shared incompetence, like, how much of it is like… we’re talking about someone else’s business issue, they had a problem with a leader sales, whatever it may be. The vast majority of what I’ve learned being in the group has been the has been things that weren’t directed toward me. It was sitting in the room hearing someone else’s challenge and recognizing, oh, we all have this challenge. Like, that is not something that’s unique to me, I’m not alone in this. It’s not an isolated incident. And, and, you know, the learning from, you know, not just A to B but B to C is phenomenal.
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah, no, I agree. Yeah, that’s, I tell people, a lot of times every member has their million dollar story. You know, you’re in a group five years, you’re gonna have some major direction change. Any number of things, you know, you learn about something that you didn’t know about, that makes a big, huge influence in the future, the group you make you you avoid making a bad decision, you make a good decision. And as I tell those stories to people almost every time, it was not the day it happened, it was not the day the member came asking about that. That’s fascinating, right? It just, they weren’t, they weren’t. They were in the environment, in which so Convene uses this phrase, learning takes place over time in community. Learning takes place over time in community, and you just got to be there. You got to be rubbing shoulders with people who are your peers, who are encountering the same kind of issues you’re encountering, and then you learn from watching them. Learn from their advice you learn from your advising of them.
Scott Ritzheimer
I think the fascinating thing about that is and I know this from experience, but you don’t even know what question to ask. Right? And it was like one on one in a conversation with you or with another coach. I found myself multiple times. It’s just like I don’t know, you know, I don’t know what I need. If I knew what to ask, I probably would have at least tried to answer it already, you know, I would have Googled it. Yeah. And so what I think that group environment does is it confront that in a way that is immediately tied to Okay. And there’s also a solution here. Right. And, and being able to do that in an environment like that again, and again. And again, I think it’s fascinating. I hadn’t put two and two together on that being the place where the most value is generated. But it’s really easy to understand why. And I think that’s one of the advantages that the group has over doing a solo coaching is, when it’s one on one, it’s all up to you, as a coach or to your client to know what questions to ask, and you’re not there when they’re working. And they’re not a coach. Right? So even in that environment, there can be blind spots, that you’ve found a way to overcome with a group.
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah, yeah. I also have the issue of Well, I think it’s, it’s what you say, in a coaching relationship. You’re not to say that’s good or bad. But in a coaching relationship, the CO G is expected to come with the issue. Right? Right. So that’s sort of standard coaching. My job as a coach is to ask questions, but you got to tell me where you know where you’re stuck and where you’re trying to get to? That’s very, very valuable. I use that methodology a lot. When especially if I don’t have expertise in the area or don’t know how to find expertise in the area. Best I can do is help you ask questions in your head. But but we can also go the other way in convene, which is we can we can tell you what your issues are. Yeah. And help help you get to one of the processes that we use in convening is called What’s the question? So a member will come in and just be wandering all over the place. And the group knows they’re wandering, right? And then I’ll, you know, I’ll stop and say, Okay, let’s stop has been what question Is he asking? What question is she asking? And then they’ll go, you’ll get 20 different answers, or 10 different answers as you go around the room. And then we continue to work it down, narrow it and then usually what happens is the member who’s raising the the uncomfortable situation? Yeah, that’s what I that’s my question. That’s fine. And then you can move forward and talk about it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. Yeah. So good. I love that. Now, kind of piggybacking on on some of what you’ve talked about so far, but in your opinion, who should have a coach and why?
Dr. Tom Lutz
I had a dentist once asked me this question. Or say this to me, Hey, you don’t have to floss. I said, Oh, really? I’ve never had a dentist tell me that I don’t have to floss. He says, Yeah, you only need to floss the teeth. You want to keep? Ah, you don’t you don’t need a coach. You only need a coach, if you want to be successful. You know, who needs a coach? I think I you know, I don’t have evidence behind this. But I think certainly if you look at sports players, right? The most success they name the five most successful sports figures you can think of?
Scott Ritzheimer
Yes, yes, yes. Yes. And yes.
Dr. Tom Lutz
Let’s let your let your audience pick them. What’s in common of all of them? Who at the top of the goat, had good coaches, good coaches. You know, would Michael Jordan have been able to be Michael Jordan? Without? What was his name? Phil, the coach of the the Chicago. Wood would would he have been able to be as good as he was as coach? And the simple answer is no. Yeah. So I think that’s a simple answer to your question. You know, anybody who wants to be better at what they’re called to do needs a coach.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. So true. Alright, so mama we’ve been waiting for here. I’d love for you to share with us the biggest secret that you have that you’d want to share to help the founders and leaders that are listening or watching today to grow their organization and achieve what you’ve seen happen in so many of your clients lives and businesses.
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah, so for me, it’ll go back to my vision statement. God has gifted called and positioned me to help his visionaries, find plan and execute their role. Before I discovered that, and I’ll tell you just a personal story before I discovered that and I discovered it after looking back at 20 years of successfully helping to grow that business from zero to 1800 employees and I looked back and said, What did I do best what I did best was get inside our our or lead partners had get him to document and tell us what the destination was. And then I could translate that from vision into planning. That’s the company’s vision planners. And that’s, that’s where I, I learned. But then I applied that to the rest of my life. And I realized, you know what, that’s not the way I have a relationship with my wife, or had, I was very directive there, you should wear a green shirt on Tuesday, you should cook potatoes on Wednesday, you should clean the house on Thursday, and my seven children, I was you should be a doctor you should be, etc. And so what I what I took to heart at that point was, if I want to help them get movement, it isn’t making them go where I want to go, where I think they should go, because that’s just going to be somebody from the outside, tell them what to do. I need to get into their heart, I need to get the vision for where they want to go. And then they’re receptive to my help my coaching the facilitation of the group, because they know that we’re helping them to get where they want to go, right. I think that’s, that’s a secret I use.
Scott Ritzheimer
It’s surprising to me how many coaches don’t do that, you know, when you look at folks who’ve had bad coaching experiences, I think, probably the number one thing I’ve heard is they took me somewhere I didn’t want to go. Right. I led me somewhere that I didn’t want to be and I think it really comes down to that is, you know, what vision or are they going after? Right? What, what vision? Are you helping them go after?
Dr. Tom Lutz
It’s got to be there? Or they don’t own it.
Scott Ritzheimer
Very true. All right. So now I’ve worked with enough coaches to know that coaches tend to have a knack for spending all their energy on their clients, and not necessarily leaving much at all to take their own medicine, if you will, to follow their own advice. And so I’d love for you to kind of take your coach hat off for a minute, put your CEO hat on, and tell us what the next phase of growth looks like for you and your business.
Dr. Tom Lutz
For me, yeah, I say probably for me. You know, I’ve just published the book, equipping Christians for Kingdom purpose in their work. And the next area of growth for me is in promoting that message. And I’m doing a lot of podcasts. You know, I did, I did a radio interview today and this podcast. So learning to communicate the message not print, but verbal. And learning. I’m looking into speakers, bureaus, people who will will, whose job it is to, to schedule speeches, for me that sort of thing.
I’ve always done a lot of speaking, you know, I speak on the convene speaker’s bureau and I teach at the seminary, so I’m very comfortable in that role. But I think the next it’s, it’s maybe trying to prepare, I hope for a bigger stage, where the message, you know, the message that I feel like I’ve been given, and I think is resonating quite well, the book was published in April, resonated quite well. And I feel like that’s, at least for me, you know, so what do you do? I’m interviewing some coaches right now, you know, about helping me to make that transition. I’ve got I’ve had opportunity to turn the question back to my Convene teams in some cases, and just ask them guys, what do you think I should do?
I mean, I’m part of a group of seven other Convene chairs, and we meet twice a month and basically, I have a coaching relationship with one of the seven and that revolves every six months back and forth coaching and then we we have a group coaching environment you know, so those that’s that’s I have a coaching network is right. That’s it. You know, my good friend Lee Bates. Lee is kind of my informal coach. We play golf at least once a month together, and the whole time I’m coaching him or he’s coaching me.
Scott Ritzheimer
Yeah. I love that Lee’s a fantastic guy. Now that you dropped just briefly there you tell us about this book that’s coming out. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about what the big ideas of the book and kind of where folks can find it if they want to learn more?
Dr. Tom Lutz
Yeah, so the book is called equipping Christians for Kingdom purpose in their work. It’s a book i i wrote a doctoral dissertation, a while back and the title of it was discipling, sea level Christian executives. And the theme of the book kind of goes like this that most pastors most often included in my early days, tend to talk to their congregations, as if the most important thing that the congregational member does is to do church work. So then now all of a sudden spirituality is truncated down to what happens nights and weekends, right?
When in reality most of us spend, here’s a number I’ve heard it, get an average works span, you’ll spend 90,000 hours at work 2000 hours if you’re an active church member, in that same period of time, why, and yet, we’re taught we teach the people who are leading discipling people coaching them up in their faith. We’ve taught them over the years to talk to people about only their church work.
What this book does, and it’s written for coaches, not necessarily it’s valuable for a disciple, someone who wants to learn about the theology of work and be challenged, but it’s really written for you. You know, so if you’re in a men’s discipleship group, or you’re, you know, having opportunity to, as I do work with Christian business owners, it gives you the language to talk to them about the importance of what they do outside the church. So it’s really designed and it’s unique, and that when I wrote my dissertation, you’re supposed to do a literature review on all the most important books in the area of your research.
I spent a weekend one time with the librarian at covenant seminary, there aren’t any. Well, there just simply isn’t another book, telling coaches how to coach Christian workers, right. And so that’s why I just said about it, you know, it’s a unique book. It’s getting really positive response, which is exciting. Yeah, we’ll see where it goes.
Scott Ritzheimer
That’s excellent.
Dr. Tom Lutz
You said, where can they get it? Yeah, they anywhere they buy books. It’s published by Tyndale major publisher, a division of Tinder called Hendricks and Rose. So you can get it on Tyndale site, you get the Hendricksandrose.com. Amazon, of course, Barnes and Noble Christian books, books, a million. My local church bookstore, you can go anywhere you buy books, and tell them you want this book by this author published by Hendricks and Rose, and they have a rep from Tyndale who can make it available to him.
Scott Ritzheimer
Got it. Awesome.
Dr. Tom Lutz
I was asked this question for what it’s worth, they can look at Facebook.com/VocationalDiscipleship. There’s a link to to where they can buy the book, it also linked to other resources around this whole topic.
Scott Ritzheimer
Excellent. We’ll make sure we include that link for everyone listening watching today. And last thing for someone sitting there especially early in the conversation, we were talking about the group and the value of a group and them say, hey, I want that I need that. Right. I need someone who can can get behind my vision and help me go after it. How can they learn more about that?
Yeah, probably the best resource there would be. convenenow.com. If you do slash Tom Lutz, it’ll tell you more about me. But if you want to learn about Convene, there’s videos of members talking about the value of the group. You can, wherever they happen to be located. If they’re interested in meeting a local convene chair, you can just request , I’m in Arizona, have them contact me and, and convene to have somebody reach out to him.
Fantastic. Well, Tom, thanks so much for being on the show here today. And thank you for you and your contribution to me and the business as as my coach. I deeply appreciate it and it was an honor having you here today.
Dr. Tom Lutz
Great, Scott. It’s been it’s good to have you and good luck with the podcast.
All right. Appreciate it. Thanks. And for those of you who are listening, we’re so glad you’re here. We will get these links out to you. So you have those and we look forward to seeing you next week. Take care
Contact Tom
While planting several churches in the Baltimore area, Tom became involved in a small startup information services company that serviced the construction industry.
Over the next 20 years, Tom filled various senior roles including divisional President, the company grew to $120 million with 1600 employees in 18 countries.
After the sale of CMD Group Tom launched Vision Planners, LLC, a consultancy designed to assist visionaries in finding, planning and executing their vision.
Tom Currently facilitates two Convene Groups in the Atlanta area. With his unique background, Tom guides client companies in the development of strategic plans and implementation designed to ensure the realization of their visions.
Tom earned his doctorate from Covenant Theological Seminary in 2017. In addition to his work as a Convene Chair he is currently Professor of Biblical Studies at Metro Atlanta Seminary. He is writing a book on the topic of vocational discipleship which should be published in 2020. He lives in Peachtree Corners, GA with Sherry, his wife of 45 years, in close proximity to his seven children and 8 grandchildren.
You can find out more about Tom at https://www.convenenow.com/tomlutz and his brand new book Equipping Christians for Kingdom Purpose in Their Work https://www.facebook.com/VocationalDiscipleship/