How Do Entrepreneurs Think? A Conversation with Lowell Busenitz, Part 1

The world is becoming increasingly proficient at telling stories that deny God. As such, we need thinking Christian to become as natural as breathing. Welcome to the Thinking Christian podcast. I'm Dr. James Spencer. Through calm, thoughtful theological discussions, Thinking Christian highlights the ways God is working in the world and questions the underlying social, cultural, and political assumptions that hinder Christians from becoming more like Christ. Now, on to today's episode of Thinking Christian. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of Thinking Christian. I am joined today by Lowell Busnits. Lowell, I hope I'm getting that right. Did I get your last name right? Actually, it's Busnits. Busnits. See, I'm glad I asked. I should probably have done that before we started recording, but, you know, adds to the charm. And so we're going to be discussing, Lowell is sort of a business expert. He's been involved. He's done a lot of work and research into entrepreneurship. And so today on Thinking Christian, what we're going to be discussing really is his research, his thoughts on business and entrepreneurship. And so just really excited to have you on today, Lowell, and appreciate you being here. How are you doing? Thank you. Doing well. Yeah. Well, before we get rolling too far, just tell us a little bit about yourself. Give us a little bit of your background. Yeah. Give us a sense of who you are. Sure. I grew up in Kansas, a family of six boys and one girl on a farm. Great, great upbringing and a really good home church in many ways. I came to know the Lord at an early age. Decided I wanted to do something different, ultimately, than full-time ministry or to farm like many of my siblings were doing. Ended up going to, first of all, got my bachelor's degree from Emporia State and then did full-time ministry, actually, for six years with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Then got into the, became an entrepreneur, got into the construction industry and had some good years with that. But kind of reached the end of that and got bored with it in many ways. And so I knew I liked the university environment and enjoyed teaching, so I decided what I really wanted to do was teach at the university level. Headed back to grad school and ended up at Texas A&M for my PhD. Was, and then, so five years doing my PhD and then my first job out was at the University of Houston for six years again. And then had the opportunity to go to the University of Oklahoma where I spent the last 20 years of my career and so retired from that full-time. Still working on some academic papers and some former doctoral students and so forth doing that. So yeah, it's been a great run and very privileged to have been on this journey. Well, what was your, how did your faith play a role in your life? When did you, did you grow up Christian? Did you come to faith later in life? Yeah, my mother led me to the Lord when I was five years old. Didn't completely know what I was doing, but I'm pretty sure the Lord met me at that point. And, you know, and had various points through my growing up years where it just like God had touched me one night when I was probably, I don't know, 10, 11, 12 years old, walking out under the stars on the farm I grew up on and got away from the lights a little bit and was just awestruck by God's creation. And that was just one of those, one of those moments. And, you know, in high school, there was, you know, it was really, it was a time when I was touched by, first time I was ever touched by a scripture passage that I remember anyway, was Philippians 1.6, that he who began a good work in you will perform it, will continue it until the day of Jesus Christ. And it just like, you mean I, I don't have to rely on how good I am, that, and I have to try to get everything just right in order for this journey with the Lord to go forward, but that he was already at work continuing that was just a really nice breakthrough for me that really hit me. And so, so yeah, so those kind of in a nutshell, my early years. Very good. Well, I know, you know, we, we talked, this isn't our first conversation. So we talked last week and we kind of got into your doctoral research and some of what you found during that doctoral research. And so I'm kind of wondering if you'd review that for folks. Just give us a thumbnail sketch and then maybe we can dive into that and talk a little bit about how maybe that relates to entrepreneurship in general, Christians and entrepreneurship, entrepreneurship in the church. And yeah, we'll just see where this goes. Sure. Well, I, when I started my doctoral program in 1987, boy, I was, I did not know what I was in for. Was my other degrees had all been from teaching schools. So I really had very few clues as to what research was about. And I learned that if you're going to get, if I was going to get this PhD, that I was going to need to get involved with research. Was in the second semester of my doctoral studies. It was spring break and I still felt like I was. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579. On the edge about whether or not I was going to be able to make it. And that spring break, I had a take-home exam that I had to do with statistics. And I had this paper that I needed to write for a doctoral seminar. And this week was on, the readings were on decision-making. And so I had to write this paper. And it was, you know, one of the papers that we read was on the use of heuristics and biases in decision-making and heuristics in particular. Heuristics are decision shortcuts, are ways of not being, as we maybe normally would call it, completely rational in our decision-making. That when we go and buy a tool or a piece of equipment or make a decision about whether we're going to go here or go there, we usually don't break out and, you know, bring out the consumer reports and let me do, get the analysis here about what brand's better and all that and take the time to do that. That heuristics would be said, well, you know, last time I had a really good experience with DeWalt or Milwaukee tools or something like that. So, okay, I need a new, I need a new saw. I'm just going to go and use this brand and be in and out and got it done in a hurry. And the conjecture I put forward in this paper was that entrepreneurs use heuristics, decision-making shortcuts, more extensively than managers in large organizations do. I had been around entrepreneurs, obviously, from earlier career path and grew up with a number of them around me. The literature at that point was basically saying, you know,

Entrepreneurs really aren't any different from everybody else. The initial research was, you know, they have a high need for achievement. They're go-getters. They're risk takers is probably the biggest characteristic that's associated with entrepreneurs. But from a research standpoint, back in the early 80s, that stream just ran out of gas. People could not, researchers were finding very few differences. And basically, kind of the consensus was, we need to just get away from looking at the traits of entrepreneurs because we're not finding anything. We need to go and look at how they make, it's really about the strategies they choose, not how they decide to go there. Well, my paper that I put forward for my professor for that week really liked my paper that basically said that entrepreneurs make decisions more extensively, use heuristics in their decision-making more extensively than managers do. And he was an emerging scholar and became one of the well-recognized scholars around it. And he really liked my idea and said, there's the dissertation in this topic if you want it. This is a really important idea. Whether you dissertate on it or not, don't let loose of this idea. And so I started working on it. And at that point, in that juncture, that I came up with this idea was absolutely a God thing. One, I was, I still was, you know, almost at ground zero trying to figure out what research was about. And then I put these pieces together. One was a real God send, a gift. But the other, the other part of it that I, why I think that I maybe had some impetus to even go down this direction was because of my Christian roots and what the scriptures say about giftedness. That, that we all have have different gifts. And so from that standpoint, it really wasn't foreign to me to think about entrepreneurs being cut out of a little bit of a different mold. That, that those who go forward do that. So, and here's kind of the reason why this makes some sense for entrepreneurs to use heuristics more extensively. They, they've got multiple decisions they have to make across the board. You know, there's a saying that I'm a jack of all trades and maybe a master of none, or maybe it's a jack of all trades and master of one or two. Being an entrepreneur, you have to make decisions about buying equipment. You have to make decisions about what's your target market. Are we going to go here or are we going to go there? Are we, at what point is this product complete enough to go to market with? And what will we, what innovations will we pursue later on? Who are we going to hire and how are we going to do that? Just all the manufacturing production process, software decisions that have to be made across the spectrum. They have to make all of these decisions. They can't possibly use an economics model for grinding out the data, bringing all that in and saying, this is okay. This is the best decision we can make. They do that. They'll never get around to starting the business. It'll never happen because they're always waiting on more data to come in. So if they don't use heuristics, they they'll never, never start their venture. So thank goodness that there are some that do it and actually feel quite comfortable with that. Along the way, you know, that it's, and it's easy for people from the outside to first hear about heuristics. It's like, it's just a decision shortcut. I just buy brand name and it can be that. But there's a lot of times as well that that I discovered that entrepreneurs really have, maybe we can call it a sixth sense about some things, about their product, about this new widget that they're making, that they're coming up with. That they, they may not fully understand themselves, but they have worked with it extensively. And they know that when, when I do A, this leads to C and D. I can't explain it, but I know if we, if we go this route, I know it'll work even though I can't fully explain it. Or maybe it's with the market. They've been in the marketplace. They, they know potential customers and having been around them a while, they, yeah, I don't have any data to prove it, but I, I know it. I know it down in my heart that this is, this is the way to go. This is the market to pursue. And, and so, so it's a way, heuristics are, are a way of making some decisions that, that are deeper sixth sense knows about and, and allows us to get through the decision-making process of a startup. And so in that sense, using heuristics can be a real asset for entrepreneurs in starting new businesses. So let me try to summarize a little bit of that, just so folks who maybe aren't as familiar with decision-making literature and heuristics. So what you were arguing was, number one, it's not just that entrepreneurs learn to use heuristics. Let me ask you a serious question. If something triggered a major market drop in the coming months, would your retirement be ready or exposed? With inflation, market volatility, and ongoing global uncertainty, more families are taking a closer look at whether their retirement plan is truly built to hold up. And many are finding that adding a layer of protection makes a lot of sense. Sanctuary Metals is a Christian-owned company that helps families strengthen their retirement savings with physical gold and silver through a gold IRA. During uncertain times, many people look to precious metals as a way to add stability when other assets may be under pressure. If you'd like to explore whether a gold IRA is a good fit for your situation, Sanctuary Metals makes it easy to get started. Text GUIDE to 94878 to receive your free retirement defense guide or call 888-958-6579 to speak with one of their knowledgeable team members. Again, text GUIDE to 94878 or call 888-958-6579 to learn more effectively. Like anybody could use heuristics, right? We all use them all the time anyway. But that they are actually gifted at applying those heuristics across a wide variety of domains and taking the risk that they're not missing a lot or that what they're missing is relatively insignificant to the tasks that they're going after. Is that a fair summary? Yes, it is. That's a great summary. Yeah. And so it's not so much that anybody could, quote, learn to be an entrepreneur. Like these characteristics, you might be able to learn heuristics. You could learn to use heuristics, obviously. Like that, I think, is clear. But I would assume, and correct me if I'm wrong, that what you're suggesting is, and what your research found, is that these entrepreneurs actually had it inherently. Like it's something that was embedded within their brains that is not necessarily something that no one else can do, but it's that it's their basic orientation. And so when it's your basic orientation, you just get really good at it. It's almost like having, like I mentioned on the podcast a lot, like I used to be in personal training. And, you know, I'd see these guys who are like the big bodybuilders, you know, like they, you know, they'd compete or whatever. And it's like it didn't matter if I matched their workout. My genetics just were never going to allow me to get to that level. It's just some of it's just natural, right? And I think it's very similar to what you're saying about the entrepreneurs. It's like, yeah, you could match some of their thought patterns. You can identify those and understand what it is kind of that they're doing and how they're using these heuristics. But there's still that embedded orientation that you're never really going to have that's very natural to you and gifted to you. Is that is that fair? Yeah, I think that's fair. I think there's, you know, it's not black and white. You know, there's there's people who are really given to the use of heuristics and decision making. And as soon as the decision process becomes more systematized, you know, they're they're out.

You know, audio, you know, this is ridiculous. This is a waste of time. I can't stand it. Whereas where others can maybe do it for a season, and then when the business matures, they naturally bring in more, maybe a little bit more systematic approaches, but yeah, you know, I, there's really, there's really, it's a, it's really beneficial for the startup process that you just can't get through all the decisions and all the, all the data that, that is there, but it's also, it's not just shortcuts. It's the, there's also that deeper sense about what's going on in a marketplace with, with a product that I'm working on, that there, there's this sense that, you know, this is the, if we knew all, if all the data was available, A would lead to B would lead to C, but that data is not there, but they sense that it's there. And therefore, they are able to get there. It's a way to make inferences about what could be in the absence of information. And I know a lot of people are uncomfortable with that. Yeah. I think it's funny. I mean, it, I will say, so my specialty is in Old Testament, right? And so the difference between y'all, you know, in seminary, you always talk about the difference between Hebrew and Greek. Greek is very structured. You know, it's, there's far less guesswork. It's got a, you know, a very comparatively more rigid sort of framework that it follows. Versus Hebrew, you can find some patterns, but a lot of it's more like word plays, and it's more, I would describe it as a more artistic language, right? And so it sort of lends itself, you have to figure out how to infer what's going on as opposed to really structurally diagramming it out and figuring out how all this fits together. And it seems to me that that's sort of the difference here, right? In the absence of that information, you know, in the absence of the Greek, you're sort of left with the Hebrew and you're saying, how do I maneuver within all of this and understand what I'm doing? And you do have to make some calculated guesses, essentially, right? Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. This is a, let me read you a quote from an entrepreneur who, when I was gathering my data, would not answer my questionnaire. You know, and I said, I think I did three rounds of questionnaires. So somebody, you know, I'd send it out and I'd get people to respond and then, but 80% of them didn't respond, so I'd send them another survey to get my response rate up and then a third survey. And he finally got tired of getting surveys in the mail and he folded up the survey, put it in and wrote me this note. You see, people who are engaged in business such as mine are rarely influenced by surveys because they don't place any stock in them. Survey reports in general are the most highly prized by those individuals who lack sufficient knowledge of a matter in which they are required to make a decision. It is my considered opinion that those individuals are not going to be found successfully engaging in entrepreneurial businesses. So he didn't understand really what I was going for with the survey, but you know, the survey was just data to him and he says, no, you know, I'm not going to do that. That's not the, that's not what's required to run an entrepreneurial business and those people won't be found in entrepreneurial ventures. He didn't give me the survey answer back, but he gave me an important data point. You can almost infer his survey responses from that quote. I mean, yeah, it's really interesting. I mean, I think as we, you know, as we think about the decision-making process and the, you know, like you connected this to Christian giftedness, and so maybe we can kind of pivot there a little bit, but I mean, I think that there is sort of an embedded giftedness, but we don't often think about how that giftedness expresses itself in decision-making. And so, you know, as you talked to me about your work prior to this, and just, and I'm listening to you now, it seems to me that that's a really crucial connection that we don't often make, right? That your individual Christian giftedness is probably going to shift the way it's going to color the way you see the world just a little bit. It's going to shift the way you make decisions a little bit. And it's going to allow you to maybe take some shortcuts or make some different intuitions about the situation you're in that would be very different than someone else. Hey everyone, thanks for listening to this first part of the interview with Lowell Boosnitz. I'll get that right at the end, even though I didn't get it right at the beginning. Hey, tomorrow, come on back. We're going to listen to the second half of this interview where Lowell and I continue to discuss decision-making, entrepreneurship, and a variety of other topics. Thanks for tuning in today, and I'll see you tomorrow on Thinking Christian. Just want to take a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on the Thinking Christian podcast. If you go to lifeaudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. This is my skyship, Dreamer. My cargo is stories, and our destination, dreams. With Abide Sleep Stories for kids, you can help your children fall asleep fast and learn about God. To find these kids' bedtime stories, go to lifeaudio.com or search your favorite podcast app for Abide Stories for Kids. You can also download the Abide app for more biblical meditations at abide.com.