There’s a lot to be said for clarity and simplicity. When top executives make short, clear statements about their defined customers, core strengths, desired future, and action plans, they prevent employee confusion and anxiety. They generate confidence throughout all levels of the organization and replace uncertainty with resilience and creativity. In fact, the quality of [...]
You know you have a talented group of people working for you. You may have personally hired some of them or seen their excellent work in other teams. But all of this talent is meaningless – and costly! – if you cannot raise the bar and motivate people to produce their best work ever, for [...]
Most CEOs I meet run their organizations atop a false assumption that creates a powerful yet almost invisible drag on their performance. Do you have the same false assumption that they do? The assumption is that your communication of strategy, tactics, goals, and behaviors through the organization actually works the way you intend. Yes, you’re [...]
Most companies I know spend a large portion of their budgets on driving new business through the front door. Far fewer spend even a fraction as much in a directed effort to avoid having those precious customers walk out the back door. The prevailing assumption is that by providing pretty good service and having largely [...]
Like death and taxes, change in business is at once inevitable and difficult to comprehend. It also happens to be necessary if your aim is to create a sustainable, competitive company. Ignore this imperative at your own peril, as history has taught us over and over again. Once great corporations like AT&T, Polaroid, and A&P [...]
Everyone you meet these days is overworked and out of time. In our tech-enhanced world, we have more timesaving helpers and systems than ever before. So, why isn’t there enough time to juggle our work, home and health responsibilities? We have an enhanced quality of life, but we’re also adding to our stress levels by [...]
Are you a Genius or a Genius Maker? How about your senior team – are they Geniuses or Genius Makers? If you’re the smartest person in the room you’re a genius. If you surround yourself with the smartest people in the room and continually strive to help them get even smarter, you’re a genius maker. [...]
“Because its 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 are costs.” - Peter Drucker In all walks of business, there are sales people. There are some sales-phobic folks, however, who believe that the word “sales” [...]
Are you a Genius or a Genius Maker? How about your management team – are they Geniuses or Genius Makers? If you’re the smartest person in the room you’re a Genius. If you surround yourself with the smartest people in the room, you’re a Genius Maker. These terms and concepts come from the book ”Multipliers – [...]
By Verne Harnish It’s no secret that the recession has decimated the building industry the last few years. But Jeff Booth’s company, BuildDirect.com, isn’t hurting. It sells building materials at a steep discount through its website, thanks to arrangements to ship directly from manufacturers. “It’s almost like an online Costco of building materials,” says Booth, [...]
This month, I’d like to share some thoughts from my friend and colleague Caryn Kopp. Caryn is known as the Chief Door Opener™ at Kopp Consulting, LLC located in Bedminster, NJ. Why waste the month of August cleaning your office? Make the most of your Summer by seizing new business opportunities while your competition plays miniature golf! [...]
Every once in a while, a great leadership book comes along that virtually forces us to take a hard look in the mirror and question what we see. My colleage Verne Harnish – The Growth Guy – shares his thoughts below regarding a newly released book that takes each of us to task. The most painful leadership book [...]
Business is fundamentally an extended conversation. Whether you’re speaking with your boss, team members, colleagues or direct reports, conversations shape what gets done. As a leader, you must engineer conversations to foster clarity, cooperation, creativity and a connection to company values. Sadly, the quality of many work conversations borders on mediocrity and/or boredom, with meaning [...]
A new McGill Institute for Health and Social Policy study published by the Harvard Business Review reports that no matter what the size of your business – SURPRISE! – the way you treat employees at the lowest rungs of the company ladder can have a positive impact on your bottom line. This finding seems to be [...]
I was recently interviewed by marketing guru & serial entrepreneur Eric Keiles for his podcast show. During the 30 minute interview, we discuss: 1. The root causes of the “Growth Trap” that severely restrict profitable growth 2. How to eliminate Sales Ghosts permanently from your organization 3. How to dramatically improve the effectiveness of your [...]
In his book The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz distills the essence of Toltec wisdom into four principles for living a life of value: Be impeccable with your word. Don’t take anything personally. Don’t make assumptions. Always do your best. How elegantly simple and, as some might say, a “no brainer!” But simple wisdom isn’t [...]
As a leader, you need to understand why you and the people you work with resist change and cling to the status quo. There are five major reasons why people resist change. The first is FEAR. Fear is internal; it’s in our head, however it is the great crippler of human potential. Fear can be [...]
How to Avoid Company Burnout In the current issue of The Harvard Business Review, authors Heike Bruch and Jochen Menges explore the root causes of “The Acceleration Trap” – never-ending, hard-charging activity and change inside an organization – and offer practical solutions to avoid it. Although their change and growth strategies often succeed brilliantly for [...]
Most business leaders have lost sight of what motivates people at work. In fact, some companies haven’t updated their management practices in years, which means they’re incapable of creating high-performance teams. In Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us, former U.S. Department of Labor aide Daniel H. Pink says businesses commit “seven deadly flaws”: [...]
How to Avoid Company Burnout In the current issue of The Harvard Business Review, authors Heike Bruch and Jochen Menges explore the root causes of “The Acceleration Trap” – never-ending, hard-charging activity and change inside an organization – and offer practical solutions to avoid it. Although their change and growth strategies often succeed brilliantly for [...]
