Recognizing and Navigating Conflict on The Road to Family Business Success Discover the potential hazards of attempting to drive in the both lanes. The inherent conflicts between the two lanes shown below form the basis of nearly all family-owned business
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The Purpose of ANY Business Management Guru, Peter Drucker said it best. Because it’s purpose is to create a customer, the business has two – and only- two functions, marketing and innovation. Marketing and innovation produce results, all the rest
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Doing More with Less As you’re continuously challenged to achieve more with fewer resources, at some point you start to wonder if you’re trying to squeeze blood from a turnip. While it may not be possible to get vegetables to
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The first six weeks of 2009 were not kind to the reputation of Jim Collins’ business bible, Good To Great. Performance issues with at least five of the eleven chronicled Good to Great companies have hit the headlines. G2G financial
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Decision Making in Times of Uncertainty With the current pessimism, media overkill and uncertainty about economic conditions, we are seeing more so-called leaders become reluctant to set revenue and/or profit or related performance goals with their subordinates. In the interest
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“Hello Muddah” We’ve all been pondering our country’s financial meltdown and wondering: How could this happen? Here’s my take. I’m not a financial guy. My analysis comes through the lens of understanding how human dynamics affects how things do and/or
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Figuratively Speaking, you do. So, what are you doing with it? Pogo Cartoonist Walt Kelly coined the phrase: We have met the enemy and he is us. If we can accept that we are all our own worst enemy, the
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As the tight economy has reduced business activity and limited resources, I’m also seeing an accompanying new trend in behaviors. Variations of that ever popular lie: “The check’s in the mail” is being used with greater regularity. With that, there
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Your passengers and their placement can determine your success. It has been said that business leaders evolve into one of three categories: ▪ Inspired ▪ Complacent ▪ Desperate In 2001, author Jim Collins provided the inspired with a business bible
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How do we get our people to execute? Each year, the typical American company invests 36% of their sales in their human capital. According to the book, Play to Your Strengths, “human capital is the biggest investment about which management
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Advanced Education on Wheels Puts Personal Development on Cruise Control “Would you like knowledge with that?” Commuter Downtime It’s been said that commuters here in Chicago experience only two seasons in the course of a year: winter and construction. Both
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Do you ever gamble with your reputation? Is it worth the risk? There is an old cliché in baseball scouting: “Good hit, no field”. It refers to players offensively inclined but defensively deficient. Baseball has provided a place for these
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What’s Your Answer? When asked this question, most of us tend to answer it in terms of our typical activities and expertise. We speak of what we do and how we do it. My advice to those attempting to articulate
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What’s Wrong with Consensus Driven Leadership? Sorry for the inconvenience. This article The NAYs Have It: Consensus Driven Leadership has moved. Link to the New Location
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On October 28, 2006, the sports world lost a legendary figure with the passing of Red Auerbach. He was the architect and mastermind for one of the most successful sports franchises of all time, the Boston Celtics. He coached the
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For those who missed the recent story, executives at Radio Shack made headlines with the lay-off of 400 employees via E-Mail. In what once might have been considered a magical move, the Radio Shack folks figured out how to make
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When it comes to understanding their employee turnover, many employers don’t know what they don’t know. And just when they think they know, there’s usually something else. Competition I’ve long been a believer that businesses owners must maintain an awareness
Continue reading → In the business best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, author Jim Collins explores common elements to eleven publicly traded companies that made a transformation from good performance to at least fifteen years
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What does it really cost to Wing It? Business Blue Prints Most companies in manufacturing and construction have developed competencies with AutoCAD™ or some other Computer Aided Design system for generating plans. Smaller organizations may lack in-house CAD resources, but
Continue reading → If you can’t define it, how will you achieve it? In the business best seller Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t, author Jim Collins explores the common elements of eleven publicly traded companies that
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Ready For Take Off? Imagine you are a commercial airline pilot responsible for the safe delivery of a plane full of passengers to their scheduled destination. The successful outcome of your flight depends on precise completion of a series of
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The Leader of the Future As a student of leadership effectiveness and influencing skills, a quote from Management Guru Peter Drucker provided inspiration I’m compelled to share with subscribers. The leader of the past knew how to tell. The leader
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The Law of Process The Law of Process is a developmental model that applies to every process from learning to tie your shoes to building sustained greatness. Continuous development involves moving through successive quadrants on a continuous progression of growth.
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When disaster struck New York, Chicago and New Orleans, how did leadership respond? Just two weeks shy of the fourth anniversary of September 11, our country experienced another epic disaster, Hurricane Katrina. Our political leadership was challenged to respond. The
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Fear can hold you prisoner. Hope can set you free. If you haven’t seen it, Shawshank Redemption is a 1994 film adaptation of a Stephen King short story that received seven Oscar nominations. Tim Robbins plays Andy Dufresne, a city
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How smart are YOUR Communication Choices? Do you remember that classic United Airlines TV commercial? The one where a company leader announces they have lost one of their oldest customers because they didn’t know us anymore? The CEO’s passionate response
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Decision Making Insight from Amphibians Allow me to share some valuable insight I’ve gained about the process of decision making and subsequent execution. It comes from an unlikely source: frogs. Before you ignore this seemly unintelligent source, I urge you
Continue reading → Why is it so easy to settle for good? The title of this briefing, “Good is the Enemy of Great” is the first sentence of Jim Collins’ business best seller, Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and
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The labor market is more competitive. Will some of your key people choose the highway? That’s An Order! In the military, where discipline is essential, the expression; “that’s an order” is routinely used as a clarifier for urgent requests. What
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No one approaches their work day by asking this question. Yet despite noble intentions, expensive miscues occur every day. Why? OK, perhaps there are some postal workers that might intentionally direct your parcel to Bora Bora. So let’s just consider
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Michael Gerber was Correct. But… Michael Gerber’s 1988 book, The E-Myth, is recommended reading for all entrepreneurial business owners. The sequel, The E-Myth Revisited, is the more valuable read. If you’ve not read these or need a review, here is
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Railroad Q & A Have you ever wondered why the U.S. standard railroad gauge (the distance between the rails) is 4 feet, 8½ inches? Probably not, but you must admit it’s a peculiar number. Like many of our US measuring
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What does “Time Is Money” Really Mean You’ve heard the old adage: Time is money. We all say it. What does that really mean? Many of us are paid on the basis of the amount of time that we put
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Are there silver bullets for today’s cluttered marketing arena? Brand building attempts are everywhere today. We need to look no further than professional sporting events to be exposed to advertising overkill. In baseball, superimposed ads behind home plate are changed
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My personal favorite example of taking lemons and making lemonade comes from the early days of Wal-Mart, long before they became The World’s Largest Retailer. The Lemons Our story begins at an early Wal-Mart store, located in an economically depressed
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In my experience with family owned businesses, I have discovered that if owners would follow two simple rules, their lives would be both more prosperous and harmonious. Rule #1:Treat your employees like family. Rule #2: Treat your family like employees.
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Wasting Millions In his book Working With Emotional Intelligence, Daniel Goleman describes how millions are wasted on two and three day leadership and management training seminars. In some researched cases, performance actually dropped after seminar training. Drinking from a Fire Hose
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A business will rise no higher than the level of its leadership. The Peter Principle; defined Executive recruiters and commercial lenders agree that it takes a different kind of leader to run a $20 million company that it does to
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It starts with with a seemingly harmless fabrication Have ever you avoided a phone call by instructing your assistant… “Tell him I’ve gone to lunch” or “Tell her I’m in a meeting” …when it’s not true? It seems like a
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A Tale of Two Brands Business planning emphasizes strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. A Vision and/or Mission are standard fare. However, the most meticulous strategy plan can still derail without the guidance of core values. They are the standards for
Continue reading → Chasing Your Tail Have you ever watched a dog chasing his tail? What a comical sight! The dog runs in circles, never getting what he’s after. He eventually wears out and gives up. In my travels, I find a surprising
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