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Gary patiently explained to me that coffee does not equal coffee does not equal coffee.  I had no idea that it matters where the coffee came from, or who grew and harvested and roasted it, and that the journey to my mug was really a work of art!  What? It turns out that there are […]

What is that supposed to mean?  I think of myself as a strategy guy so why is culture so threatening?  Peter Drucker made the statement so maybe I had better find out what he meant by it. It seems that business guru, Drucker, says that the culture of a company may be more important than

Used With Permission Connecting with Culture Business Issues & Trends Spiritual alertness is a recurrent theme in the Psalms. The language often used is of being ‘awake’ to God. Even though David was hiding from King Saul in a cave, he wrote these rousing lyrics: ‘Awake, my soul! Awake harp and lyre! I will awaken

A couple of months ago, IBEC’s Managing Director, Bob Bush, designed a survey with the objective of identifying the current needs of the business owners we serve, so as to create increased value for our clients.  Eighteen responded. The survey had five questions designed to reveal business pain points. What are the greatest challenges you

I met Dave Kier some years ago when he joined the board of IBEC Ventures, a Business as Mission consulting group I founded in 2006.  I quickly learned of his amazingly successful career in the agribusiness world where he had grown a small animal feed business (DFS Feeds) into one of the largest in Iowa,

Some years ago, while leading a workshop at a conference in Arizona, a local business owner asked the question, “are there no failed startup enterprises in the BAM world?”  While I readily agreed, I was stimulated to think about the question in a more profound way.  There certainly are gigantic risk factors in starting and

I recently listened to Mike Baer’s interview of George Maru of Ambatana in Nairobi, Kenya.  George as an environmental engineer is connected to Empower Hope of Kenya and articulated a term which is important in creating understanding in the BAM world.  It is the “Forgotten Middle”. The term is well known in educational circles as

Most of us realize that our God is a Creator-God, and He even gave mankind the ability and responsibility to create. Deuteronomy 8:18, specifically states that God gives us the ability to create wealth. As creators in the image of God, we create all kinds of things – a colorful flower bouquet; a crab cake;

This is graduation time in North America.  My mind retreats some decades to when it was a privilege to give the commencement address at two different high schools.   Now this week I am attending my second grandson’s graduation from high school. My advice for him comes first from the scriptures: The book of Proverbs, with

“God did not call me to be a minister or a missionary; He called me to be a businessman – and I see no difference.” (Michael Cardone of Cardone Industries) I have recently been contracted to write a couple of courses for a Christian college in Canada.  One of the courses is to be entitled