The Transformation Factor

Leading Your Company for Good, for God, and for Growth

J. Frank Harrison III

• Publisher: Greenleaf Book Group Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781626348448
• eBook ISBN:
  9781626348455
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Leadership
• Index: Business

Culture Is Everything 

​A good leader builds and establishes a company culture people want to be a part of. A transformational leader elevates that, cultivating a culture in which everyone—throughout the organization—is empowered to use their talents to live and work at their best. As the chairman and CEO of Coca-Cola Consolidated, the largest Coca-Cola bottler in the United States, J. Frank Harrison III knows firsthand the importance of not only prioritizing culture but also living out and modeling the values that drive it. He believes every person in an organization matters and how they are led matters just as much. In The Transformation Factor: Leading Your Company for Good, for God, and for Growth, Harrison profiles his company and his own personal journey to show you the radical transformation and amazing ripple effects that come from a purpose-driven, people-focused culture and a leadership style that centers on serving others.

With a company that employs over sixteen thousand people, Harrison understands that real culture transformation takes great effort, intention, and courage and also humility and generosity. His book is about teaching leaders how to engage in meaningful work with people, inspire a culture of genuine care, and mobilize everyone around a purpose that not only transcends the everyday work they do but also informs it. Harrison integrates faith with work and demonstrates a revolutionary approach to leadership, modeled after the heart of God. 

The Transformation Factor shows us what it takes to commit to and invest in people, helping them recognize their fullest potential, and how to transform any environment into a place of vitality, growth, and purpose. With clarity and honesty, Harrison speaks from his experience as a leader to offer us a new way to look at people, culture, business, and success.

CHAPTER 1

THE TRANSFORMATIONAL LEADER

I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.

—Mother Teresa

Transformation is a process, and as life happens there are tons of ups and downs. It’s a journey of discovery—there are moments on mountaintops and moments in deep valleys of despair.

—Rick Warren

When this life is all said and done, how will people remember you? Have you ever thought about that? When your kids have all grown, and you move past the big five-oh, you begin to look at life differently, and you consider what the idea of legacy really means.

A few years ago, I read a book by a highly successful businessman who founded a company in his garage back in the 1970s. The company grew to be a $5 billion company and continues to grow. He told the story of his upbringing and how his family didn’t have a lot of material possessions. He explained how his faith was shaped by his parents’ faith and what he learned by the principles they instilled in him.

The rest of the book dealt with what he learned about legacy and his plan to give away the bulk of his monetary empire to charity. Of course, when someone says they’re going to give away all their money, people tend to perk up and take notice. I sure did.

He explained how legacy was more than leaving behind a company or mountains of cash for your children and grandchildren. He had no desire to leave something that, in the hands of the young and immature, can corrupt and lead even the best people astray. He emphasized that legacy begins with who you are and who you are becoming. In short, a legacy is more than money and things.

Of course, I’d heard similar perspectives on legacy before, as I’m sure you have too. But this time, the idea of legacy stuck with me. I thought back over my own story and upbringing. I also reflected on my early days at our company and how I was leading as chairman and CEO. Was I building a legacy that was more than achievements and money and things?

A series of memories flooded my mind. I remembered the early lessons I learned: lessons of what not to do as a business leader, lessons about loyalty and dedication, lessons about trust. But I also thought about the incredible change our company has experienced over the past two decades. Our company has transformed from what I believe a typical corporate culture looks like into a life-giving environment that draws top talent in our industry. People want to work for us, and trust me, that wasn’t always the case.

I realized that if I wrote a book, I could tell readers these stories of transformation and illustrate what a transformational leader looks like. I’d tell them about the heartbeat of the transformational leader, which is service. That’s right, the transformational leader is a servant leader. And I’d tell them the incredible impact this brand of leadership had on our employees and our community.

The book in your hands is precisely that.

Imagine if you and I enjoyed a glass of refreshing Coca-Cola as I told you the stories and lessons about leadership and transformation that I’ve learned over the past forty years. We’d probably drink a lot of Coca-Cola, because I can talk about this stuff for days. I’m a storyteller by nature. If you ask me something about leadership, I’ll answer with a story. And if you and I were chatting with our Cokes, I’d probably begin with a story about a twenty-two-year-old man who didn’t wait until later in life to plant the seeds of his legacy. I would tell you about my only son, James.

THE SEEDS OF LEGACY AND THE ACTS OF TRANSFORMATION

In 2005, when James was twenty-two years old, a friend at Samaritan’s Purse challenged him to get involved in bringing relief and aid to the war-torn area of Sudan. If you don’t already know, Samaritan’s Purse is a global Christian humanitarian aid organization that provides assistance for people in spiritual and physical need.

James was a go-getter, so I wasn’t too surprised when he jumped at the opportunity to make a difference and throw himself into a place filled with danger. Not only did James possess a passion for living life, but he also loved adventure and relished risk. Most of all, he enjoyed helping people. James accepted the challenge from our friends at Samaritan’s Purse and left for Lui, Sudan, which at that time was still embroiled in its civil war with the north.

The invitation proved to be a wake-up call for James. During his time in Sudan, he visited burned villages. He met with lone survivors from brutal attacks that destroyed whole communities, and he visited hurting people in hospitals and clinics. He traveled into hard-to-reach villages with pastors and evangelists. He discovered just how ravaged this area of the world was with war and disease. It broke his heart. But it also ignited it. The experience gripped James and inspired him to make a difference. He decided to be an agent of change.

James was eager to spread the word about the deep need he discovered. I remember how he’d call me and my wife, Jan, from Africa and tell us stories about what he had experienced and his desire to do something about it. In fact, he turned our friends’ challenge on to me.

“Dad,” he said, “we have to help these people.”

James didn’t see a country or a town or a village in need. He saw individual people with names and families of their own in need. I loved his perspective.

He saw individuals.

He listened to their stories.

He became part of their culture.

And they loved him for it.

Our Sudanese friend Gabriel said, “I’ve never seen anyone else love our people like James. He became like them; he worked, lived, slept, and ate among them.” Of course, being a father, this is the kind of praise from other people you dream about for your children. I was proud of James and inspired by him.

Seeing James’s passion for helping these beautiful people was nothing short of remarkable; he had discovered and was living out his purpose right where God had called him. How could I not accept the challenge and work with him to make a difference in the lives of people in great need? With James as our guide, I began taking trips to remote parts of Africa with others to see the ravages of war, disease, and poverty with my own eyes. On one of these visits, I met Kamal and had my perspective on the power of purpose changed forever.

Our group came across Kamal during our travels through the Nuba Mountains. He was a Sudanese leader fighting daily from his mountain hideout during the civil war in that country. Tragically, he had been tortured by the opposing forces in North Sudan for his Christian faith. They had tied him down on the hot rocks in the baking sun and left him to die. He was so badly burned he lost his hands and feet and could no longer walk. So, he scooted on his backside from place to place. He was sitting low to the ground looking intently up at us when our group met him. We were amazed to discover not only was he a man of faith but even through his capture and torture, he never denied his faith in Christ.

As we gathered around Kamal, my daughter, Carter, who was traveling with our group, asked him, “How can we pray for you?” His response: “Pray that I can complete the purpose God has for my life.” Kamal clearly understood the power of purpose, and his one request was Please pray that I can complete my God-given purpose. His request wasn’t for healing or his family or the war; it was for completing his purpose. He obviously knew his purpose and just wanted to complete it! What a great example of the power of purpose in our lives and in our organizations. As a postscript (see before and after photos), after our visit and return home, we were able to get Kamal much-needed surgery, and he actually walked out of the hospital following surgery in 2010 and continued fulfilling the purpose God had called him to accomplish.

After powerful eye-opening personal encounters like the one we had with Kamal, James and I launched Open Eyes in 2008. Open Eyes is a nonprofit organization that accelerates sharing the message of Jesus Christ to the most challenging places in the world. Our first initiative was the Mobile Messenger Program. We designed the program to provide motorcycles to the pastors and evangelists who, to reach people, had to make long trips on foot. With a motorcycle, they could cover more ground and get the message of God’s love to those hard-to-reach villages.

But it’s easy to tell you about Open Eyes. What can get lost in the story of the making of this organization is the passion behind it, the heart that stepped out into the unknown and dared to love deeply. Shortly after James accepted the invitation to help out in Lui, Sudan, he discovered the tremendous need of the people brought on by the daily suffering and loss they experienced. The work we continue to do with the organization reflects this passion to relieve pain and suffering. It was this heart for the people that inspired me to step into James’s passion. And it changed me too.

Before James left for that initial trip to Sudan, he was a young man in search of something. Like you and me, he wanted to find his purpose in this world. When James accepted the invitation to get out of his comfort zone, he not only found a way to contribute and help people but also found purpose.

He’d tell me stories about the pastors he’d met on his travels and how hard they worked to bring a message of hope to people who needed it. These pastors and evangelists became mentors to him and lifelong friends to him and our family. I saw how they loved James as their own. But this really didn’t surprise me, because James had a unique way of making everyone feel like family.

TWO LEADERSHIP INSIGHTS

James’s story illustrates the value of two important leadership insights. The first one is this: Don’t wait to lay the groundwork for an enduring legacy. You can start now. And it begins not with the externals in life but with what’s inside of you.

The second is, the power of transformation can radically alter the course of your legacy. You and I can build our legacy each day. We build our legacy by caring for people, living with integrity, staying humble, and serving passionately. When people or business leaders decide to make significant changes in their approach to life and work, that transformation will undoubtedly capture the attention of others.

I’ve learned that if we can harness this kind of transformation, it can be used to incite incredible change in the lives of people, in corporate environments, and in whole communities.

START WITH A LEGACY MINDSET

Your legacy begins now. Though legacy is an accumulation of life and work, a lasting legacy is the sum of not only what you do but also who you are. What I mean by that is the type of person you are, the virtues you possess, and the character you cultivate.

Transformational leaders begin with a legacy mindset. They must not fall into the trap of barreling through life and work, hoping that their achievements will amount to something. I’ve seen too many leaders take that approach and then have to deal with the problems it produces. Instead, leading with the end in mind forces you to consider the reason why you do things or make certain decisions.

TRANSFORMATION IS CONTAGIOUS

I watched James’s life transform before my eyes. Here’s what’s fantastic about observing someone, especially someone you love deeply, experience such a profound change in their life: Transformation is contagious.

I find this to be true in an individual’s life and also in the corporate environment. When people encounter a person or culture that stands out from the status quo, they not ...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Author’s Note
• Introduction: Forging New Paths
• Chapter 1: The Transformational Leader
• Chapter 2: Brutally Honest
• Chapter 3: The Power of a Truthful Organization
• Chapter 4: Break the Cycle
• Chapter 5: Reignite the Passion for Growth
• Chapter 6: Understand the Power of Generosity
• Chapter 7: Lead Courageously
• Chapter 8: Awakened to Transformation
• Acknowledgments
• Resources
• Notes
• Index
• About the Author