ClearPurpose

You can craft the most impactful mission statement in the world, but if you don’t have the people who can pull it off, you’ll accomplish nothing. You can define the most attractive culture ever, but if the people you hire are incapable of acting that way, then everyone will be miserable. You can write the most compelling brand promise customers have ever heard, but if your people can’t deliver the value proposition, then your company’s reputation will be worse than if you’d never tried.

Your business is defined by your people. 

Your recruiting has to attract the people that will make your business shine, and you have to choose who to hire based on their fit (not just the strength of their credentials) if you want to honor God.

You might be tempted to think that, since you want your business to glorify God, you need to only hire Christians. But if God could use a donkey to get a pagan prophet to bless the Israelites and bring Him glory, you can use all kinds of people in your business to bless your customers and glorify God.

Read the full article here.

Can a company’s brand honor or dishonor God?

Does honoring God with your brand mean that you have to name your company “All Glory to God” or something like that? I don’t think so!

What is a brand? It’s not simply your company name and logo. Jeff Bezos said “Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.” It is the mental and emotional image formed in the minds of people based on the sum of all their direct and indirect interactions with your company.

So your company’s brand is the result of the collection of the things your company (and the people in it) says, the things your company (and the people in it) does, and especially the way your company (and its people) makes others feel. For a brand to honor God a company (and its people) would need to say and do things that demonstrate a love for God and His ways, and a love for its neighbors.

Sounds easy.

But a brand is a lot like a reputation. It takes a lot of time behaving well to earn a good reputation (or build a positive brand), but that reputation (or brand) can be trashed in an instant with one bad decision.

And in the social media era, it’s tempting to do/say things that draw attention and attract followers but that are not honoring to God.

Even harder, in the social media era, it’s easy for news of our bad decisions to spread quickly, tainting our brands.

Read my full article here.

I was walking across the Oklahoma Christian University campus on my way to the library to meet with a team of students that were starting work on our latest business idea. Halfway there I ran into John deSteiguer, the president of the university. He greeted me and asked me about this latest project. I told him that I was heading to a meeting with the students and he asked if he could tag along. As we approached the entrance to the library, a landscaper was down on his knees pulling weeds from around a small tree planted near the entrance. President deSteiguer greeted the man by name. He shook his hand and asked about the man’s wife, asking whether she was home from the hospital yet. He told the landscaper that he had been praying for them. We then went into the library and met with the students. The president looked each student in the eye as he shook their hands, asking their names and what they were studying (repeating their names to help himself remember), and he told them how excited he was about what they were working on.

In that brief 5–10 minute encounter President deSteiguer demonstrated that I matter, that the landscaper matters, and that the students matter. We all felt much more excited about the work that we were doing and we were energized to do it. This was an example of “mattering”.

This was the memory that immediately came to mind when I started reading The Power of Mattering by Zach Mercurio. I also immediately remembered examples where leaders practiced what Zach calls “anti-mattering” – failing to the point of making those around them feel like they don’t matter, are insignificant and expendable. This is an important topic and a helpful book.

Read my full review here.

Another Way tells the story of former VC Dave Whorton’s discovery that there’s a better way to build highly valuable companies than the Silicon Valley model. It teaches what he calls the Evergreen model using the 7Ps Principles.

I really enjoyed reading Another Way. I spent most of my career in the tech industry. My first startup was an Internet company launched months before the Netscape IPO which redefined how the world thought about entrepreneurship and startups. Over the years I’ve worked with Silicon Valley VCs and many of the companies they’ve funded. So as Dave Whorton begins telling his story, first at the most powerful VC of its time, and then trying to launch his own VC-backed startup, I could very much relate to the history he was describing. But like Dave, over the past decade, most of the companies I’ve worked with have been built using a different model. I would argue that it’s not a new model, but rather the way that companies have always been built outside of the Tech/Silicon Valley bubble that Dave and I (and many others) “grew up” in.

Bottom line, Another Way is an enjoyable telling of one man’s journey of discovery. For many like him, it will be an eye-opening revelation that the Silicon Valley model isn’t the only way to build valuable companies. For others already building (or wanting to build) companies “the old fashioned way”, the book will encourage through the examples given, and provide a helpful framework to consider as they seek their own path to building valuable companies that last for many generations.

Read my full review here.

Like by Martin Reeves and Bob Goodson tells the story of the Like button in social media (and beyond) — from its origins to its impacts to its potential futures. 

Readers will gain a deeper appreciation for the messiness and unpredictability of innovation. Many of us will also walk away from the book with a better understanding of how our Likes are used and the scary implications for where those applications might lead.

Like will appeal to those that enjoy the history of innovation and “like” thinking through how technology advances impact our lives, our businesses, and our world. While the book provides little of immediate practical application, for the right audience, it provides insights into how innovations develop and how unexpected implications emerge.

Read my full review here.

From Panic to Profit by Bill Canady is a refreshingly honest look at the challenges of turning around a struggling business and a collection of helpful tools for making the hard decisions required to do so successfully. It’s the kind of book that most business leaders hope to never need, but if you find yourself needing a turnaround, I strongly recommend giving the book a read to see if it might give you some ideas for tackling the challenge.

Bill is an executive brought in by Private Equity firms to turn around struggling businesses. In this book he presents his Profitable Growth Operating System (PGOS) — a 4 step process for turning around struggling companies so that they earn the right to grow. Based on the Pareto principle (e.g. 20% of products produce 80% of profits), the premise of the PGOS is to over-resource the “critical few” and under-resource the “trivial many.”

The 4 steps are:

1. Get a goal.

2. Frame the strategy.

3. Build the structure.

4. Launch the action plan.

In the book, the author introduces a number of tools and frameworks related to performing each of these steps and walks through the process with a very helpful example from one of the companies he was asked to fix. While the author lays out a very specific approach to engineering a turnaround, he acknowledges that every situation will be unique and dynamic. You can’t just implement his 4 step plan and assume everything will work out perfectly. It won’t. As one of the chapter titles explains “Thinking is Required.”

I really like the author’s writing style. It’s not your typical fancy business speak. It is practical and direct — exactly what you need to hear when your business is struggling, when urgency and a bias for action are required if you hope to survive. I also really like the conceptual framework he provides. The approach the author outlines resonates with my personal experience.

Read my full review here.

The old saying goes “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will do.” But, probably more accurate is Yogi Berra’s version: “If you don’t know where you’re going, you might wind up someplace else.”

Whether leaders have written it down or not, there’s a deeper reason behind every company’s existence. If you haven’t thought about what that is for your company, then you’re likely to be disappointed with what the business becomes.

Too many businesses define their purpose or mission in purely functional terms. We exist to make this. We exist to serve these customers. We exist to maximize shareholder returns (i.e. make money). Those details about your business are important, but they don’t provide the compelling reason for you and your team to fight for the company’s survival through the tough times that inevitably come for all businesses.

Read the full article here about creating a mission and vision for your business that glorifies God.

If we have the right attitudes, if we are disciplined in spending time with God, and if we focus on growing in Godliness, by the grace of God, then we will act like mature Christians. As business leaders, our actions are most evident in the decisions that we make. As mature Christian business leaders, our decisions will honor God, love people, and reflect the character of Christ.

Of course, our decisions will also be focused on operating our businesses with excellence. They will take into account all available information; will demonstrate wisdom relative to trends in our business, our industry, and the broader world; and will seek to ensure our business is increasingly successful in achieving its mission.

So, we will be wise stewards of the business God has entrusted to us, but our approach to hard decisions will be different from the non-believing business leaders around us. We will be self-sacrificing, gracious, and focused on God’s glory. 

We will do this because we have the right attitude and because God has developed in us the right character.

Read the full article here.

Exciting news to share! Today marks a special milestone for me as I venture into the world of fiction writing. The journey of crafting a captivating story arc has always seemed like a daunting task, but today, I am thrilled to announce the release of my first two historical fiction children’s books.

Historical fiction presents a unique opportunity where the foundation of a compelling narrative is laid, allowing me to infuse my creativity into the intricate details. This endeavor has been a delightful side project, and I am genuinely pleased with the outcomes. Leveraging AI technology, I not only improved the quality of my writing but also brought the stories to life through full-cast audiobook adaptations.

A special shoutout to Andrew Schwilling for his remarkable artwork and to the dedicated historical researchers whose factual insights served as the backbone for my storytelling. For more details, click here

These engaging books are now accessible through various online book retailers or directly from my website.. Dive into the world of historical fiction and embark on an adventure with these (hopefully) captivating reads!