April 2022

Estimates vary, but each of us probably sees or hears thousands of messages a day. Some are ads. Some are text messages, emails, or social media posts from family or friends. Some are official announcements from employers or government agencies. Some are news or entertainment in various media. Most of them “go in one ear and out the other.” They don’t make an impact on us that lasts more than a few seconds. As the receiver of all those messages, that’s probably good news, or else we would be burdened with too many different, and sometimes conflicting signals of what we need to do.

But, if your job involves making sure that a particular message gets heard by a specific audience and translates into action, this is a big challenge. In the article linked below I share a simple framework for having the best chance to get your message heard by the people you care about. The framework addresses three critical aspects of an effective communication: who, what, and how.

Who – The Audience
What – The Message
How – Making It Stick

Click here to read the full article.

Zach Windahl is a young entrepreneur. His first few businesses were failures, but his latest, The Brand Sunday, is a success. When he’d hit rock bottom, he turned back to God, putting Him first in everything. Only then did Windahl see the opportunity that was in front of him, and the purpose that he felt God was calling him to. In the Introduction, he describes Launch with God this way: “this is a book for people who feel their God-given purpose is in entrepreneurship. If that’s you, the pages ahead will provide you with a framework to launch a profitable business that matters.” 

That framework is presented in five parts: Partnering with God, Preparing for the Wilderness, Creating Your Big Idea, Ready for Launch, and Living with Purpose. Although the book has a light, breezy feel to it, it includes practical guidance on how to approach each of these phases of launching and growing a business. Even more, by humbly sharing his own stumbles, Windahl helps us understand how to fully integrate our faith into the struggles and the triumphs that lie ahead.

I think Launch with God can be a great encouragement to any Christian entrepreneur or any believer who dreams of someday launching their own business. While the book doesn’t provide detailed step-by-step instructions for everything involved in launching a business, it provides insights that can guide the heart and the mind to approach all the necessary steps with true wisdom. 

You may not completely agree with Windahl on every theological point (I don’t) but his honest and humble wrestling with how his faith intersects with his startup ambitions seems to strike the right balance of being serious about his faith without coming across as preachy.

Click here to read the full review.

Brock Shinen is a lawyer and consultant/advisor to business owners. The Christian Entrepreneur feels like a collection of conversations between him and his consulting clients. The book is organized around the four startup stages in the book’s subtitle (dream, plan, execute, grow) and addresses the decisions and actions involved in each of those stages. The author provides a mix of practical business guidance on the activities required for business success and how a Christian’s faith should inform those aspects of business.

I think The Christian Entrepreneur was intended to be a practical, step-by-step guide to launching and growing a business. However, most chapters only provide a high-level overview of the types of decisions and actions involved, without providing enough detailed guidance to help a first time entrepreneur work their way through it on their own. The book has many (anonymized) examples to help founders get a sense of what lies ahead as they seek to launch a business in a God honoring way. The Christian Entrepreneur may be an interesting read for a believer considering the startup journey, but other resources will be needed if they follow that path.

Read the full review here.

On a surface level, culture describes “how things are done around here”, but at the heart of culture are the values that shape how people act and interact with each other. In a small group of friends, culture naturally begins to form based on the deep understanding of who these friends are, what they care about, and how they engage with each other. The culture of an early stage startup, therefore, naturally forms around the character of the founder. As that startup begins to scale beyond a small group of friends, and as the founder becomes CEO of a growing enterprise, what needs to happen to establish and maintain a healthy culture?

In this article, as I have in previous articles in this series, I consider what “culture” looks like and how it is formed for the company in three different phases: a) while the business is still a startup searching for a profitable, scalable business model, b) when the business finds that business model and begins to scale, and c) beyond that transition as the business grows and matures.

I also use two examples – a large company (The Williams Companies) and a smaller company (Hope Builders) – to see what this process looks like in practice.

Read the full article here.

Culture is one of those topics that everyone believes is important, but very few people can define what it is. As a “strategy guy”, the quote often attributed to Peter Drucker that “culture eats strategy for breakfast” certainly gets my attention. The simplest definition of culture is “the way we do things around here.” Strategies and plans are relatively easy to develop, but if they conflict with the established culture, then they are likely to fail.

Longtime MIT Sloan School of Management professor Edgar Schein said that culture is to an organization what character is to an individual. He developed a model for culture with three layers: artifacts, espoused values, and basic assumptions. From what I have seen in companies that I have worked with, I think a model similar to Schein’s can be helpful, but with perhaps a bit more actionable and workable approach. Like Schein, I think of three layers that define culture: Purpose, People, and Process.

Building a great culture doesn’t happen by accident. It takes thought, planning, and action. Companies that have great cultures may not have used the framework I’ve described in the article linked below, but I hope this can be helpful to you as you build a great culture in your business. Let me know if I can help.

Read the full article here.