I just bought a cow. And my employees and friends are helping pay for it.

For $500 it was a bargain. I bought it from Heifer Project International, a non-profit that provides animals to people throughout the world, giving them a sustainable source of food and income.

The premise is simple and reflected in the old proverb - “Give a man a fish and feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and feed him for life.”

By providing animals such as cows, chickens, goats and sheep to people in developing countries, Heifer provides those individuals with the ability to feed and clothe themselves on an ongoing basis. I like supporting Heifer because it is a worldwide organization that reaches out to needy in South American and West African countries where the coffee beans and cocoa pods we depend upon for our livelihoods are produced.

Heifer began nearly 60 years ago with the simple idea of giving families a source of food rather than short-term relief. I have been a contributor to Heifer personally, but have never done it with my employees. At the Sustainable Brands Conference in Monterey, Calif., in July, I had the opportunity to meet several people from Heifer and was quite impressed with their dedication and professionalism and I resolved to do more with them this year.

When I returned from the conference, I shared the Heifer story with my staff and we decided to contribute. Contributions to the cow start at only $20, so for the price of one mocha every week for a month, people have the opportunity to make a small difference in the world.  If you want to track our progress or help us reach our goal, click on this link or go to www.Heifer.org and look for the Team Heifer tab under the Get Involved pull-down menu. Type in my name in “search teams” to find us at Mont Blanc Gourmet. We are now the proud donors of a cow.

This book is about the power of decentralized organizations; I decided to read it after seeing the co-author, Rod Beckstrom, at the annual Inc 500 conference.

Readers are asked to consider why, for example, Al Qaida is so powerful. How were they able to inflict such damage and emotional terror on Americans?  (As a frequent traveler, this is something I unfortunately think about every time I pass through security. The size limit on liquid and gel containers particularly impacts me since I can no longer travel with 12-ounce bottles of chocolate syrup samples for customers.  Since the gel ban, I think I have become one of UPS’s best customers.  And the last time I packed bottles in my checked baggage, all my syrups were confiscated.  In their place was a note from the TSA saying my bag had been examined. The business appointment that afternoon didn’t go so well!)

So the book looks at how decentralized, leaderless organizations with a strong sense of community can produce outsized, amazing results.  One of the examples is Wikipedia.  No real hierarchy, just people who want to contribute articles about myriad subjects and a self-policing community that ensures the articles are accurate.  One of the comments Beckstrom made in his talk was that, as organizations give up control, they have to increase their trust. When graphed, it looks like this:

As he spoke I kept nodding my head in agreement,; I realized how this applies to Mont Blanc’s business model. Because we use a number of regional production plants, our trust in the plants’ quality operations goes up and some of our control goes down. Giving up some control allows us to greatly expand our production capabilities.  But in the end, we still make and deliver on our promises.

Our unique business model has been key to keeping down costs and maintaining the same level of quality as we weather the current economic storm.

Maybe we are a starfish organization after all.

This election was all about coffee.  For the first time in its history, America embraced a candidate with roots in Kenya and Hawaii.  As acts of patriotism, we can now enjoy cups of Kenyan AA  and Hawaiian Kona extra fancy and salute our new commander in chief at the same time.  The choice was clear on Tuesday, and Arabica coffee won.  I hoist my mug to our new President and give thanks for his coffee roots.