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.

The Five Temptations of a CEO by Patrick Lencioni is a lightweight read that requires little of the reader in terms of time or effort, but will still seriously challenge most leaders to examine how they interact with their teams and lead their organizations. The lessons are simple, and yet for some will be profound, and learning them could have a major impact on how well you lead.

That being said, I finished the book with a bit of a “meh” feeling. I can’t fault anything about the book other than the fact that there’s not much to it. Some books feel like they probably were a good 20 page magazine article that was stretched to 200 pages. This one simply feels like a good 20 page magazine article (or maybe 40 pages). The two additional very brief sections added on to the fable contribute very little to the value of the book. The lessons taught are valuable, but they would probably be covered in a single chapter in most of the good business books I read.

Read my full review here.

Startup CEO by Matt Blumberg is an excellent resource for leaders of high growth startups.  I would recommend any startup/small business CEO, board member, or anyone aspiring to start or run their own company to take the time to read the book through once. There may be chapters you choose to skip because they aren’t relevant to you at this time, but most of the content will be helpful at any stage in your business. The author admittedly writes based on his own experience and so you may not always agree with him, but it’s often helpful to hear other perspectives.

After reading it, keep Startup CEO handy. You likely will find yourself referencing it often as you face different situations in your business.

Read my full review here.

By nature, startups are agile and opportunistic. Mature companies often plan years in advance, guided by long term strategies. When and how should the founder of a startup change their approach to strategy as they begin to scale and establish their growing business?

As in previous articles in this series, I think the clearest way to describe this transition is to consider what “strategy” looks like 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.

During the startup phase, most founders don’t think of themselves as being strategists. Although their vision may include a long term view of changing the world, their decision making is very focused on the day-to-day. In reality, at this point in a company’s life, the daily search is for Product-Market Fit: do we have an offer that solves a pressing need of a specific market? When the founder figures out the right answers to these critical questions, the business is ready to scale, market demand is poised to takeoff, creating tremendous demand, and the business has figured out the foundational elements of what can become a profitable business.

The founder must now figure out how to scale. The main decisions to be made tend to be around where and how to invest in scaling: Who do we hire? What capabilities/features do we develop next? What resources do we need (e.g. office space, production capacity)? Answering these questions can often be very hard, and making the wrong choices can be disastrous.

Once a company has clearly defined its strategy and is moving forward together, the nature of the CEO as strategist transitions again. The hardest decisions are often portfolio decisions — what products do we offer, what markets do we serve, and what businesses are we in?In this article, I explore what strategy looks like in each of these phases. I also bring in examples from a scaling startup, a mature business, and even the Bible.

Click here to read the full article.

Strategy is a concept that’s used in many different ways, and defined using different words, so can we even define what it means? Even more important than what it is, how do you develop strategy? In this article, I explore these important topics, including providing a 1000 foot level view of 20 different tools often used in strategy development.

Click here to read the full article.

Most startup founders are, at least to some degree, visionary. How does that change when the business begins to scale?

In the article linked below, I consider what it looks like to be the visionary 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.

Click here to read the full article.