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 [...]
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 [...]
Timidity is a factor that costs your company a lot of sales. This issue is magnified in the current economy as owners and salespeople seek to do everything possible to please current clients and to win business from prospects. However, now more than ever, you have to push back. What do I mean by pushing [...]
How do you spend your time? This question is painfully simple, yet it plays a major role in the execution of your firm’s vision and priorities. Sadly, many leaders cannot accurately answer it. You may be surprised to find a sizable disconnect between your top priorities and how you actually spend your time. People take [...]
This is Tom Peters’ latest video message and it highlights the importance of “out-reading” your competition. In case you’re wondering who Tom Peters is, publications including Fortune, the Economist, the New Yorker and the Los Angeles Times have said Tom is the “uber-guru” of management and inventor of the enormous “management guru industry,” that “in no [...]
In late August our summer vacation took us to the Outer Banks of North Carolina. If that’s a part of our country you’ve never visited, I suggest that you add it to your destination list – the beaches are beautiful, the environment is quiet and clean, and there is an incredible amount of history to [...]
In today’s mile-a-minute, e-connected, global, frenetic, here-today-gone-tomorrow world of commerce, it is no surprise that many of us don’t take enough time to select and focus on our most important business objectives. Whether you employ 4 or 400, crystal clear focus combined with a steady cadence of accountability will dramatically improve your competitive positioning and [...]
How often in your business do things go exactly as you expect? If you have prospects, customers, and employees your answer is most likely “not as often as I’d like.” Humans are imperfect and messy – so how do you and your staff actually behave when the unexpected occurs? In my first ever video blog, [...]
Assumptions make our lives easier. That’s both good news and bad. As creatures of habit, we seek efficiency through the use of assumptions in lieu of active thought to drive most of our behaviors. With few exceptions, what we do in any given 24-hour period demands little conscious thought because we’ve developed habits that help [...]
In a recent article entitled “Economic Downturn Gives Owners Time to Work on Value Drivers,” my good friend Eric Donner, Managing Member of Regal Wealth Advisors reviews how important value drivers are to maximize a business’ selling price. He goes on to point out that it is the work of the owner – not employees [...]
Leaders are remembered for their best and worst judgment calls, especially when the stakes are high, information is limited and the correct call is far from obvious. In the face of ambiguity, uncertainty and conflicting demands, the quality of a leader’s judgment and decision making determines the entire organization’s fate. That’s why leadership [...]
“Our deeds follow us, and what we have been makes us what we are.” – John Dykes Although accountability has various definitions, it is typically used to describe personal responsibility for getting something done. Accountability is an essential element of focused accomplishment and, therefore, of the business world. Successful organizations build systems that encourage accountability [...]
(How to Get Your Organization to Run Smoothly Without You) Ahh, Summer. Summer means barbecues, swimming, baseball games, camping, road trips, and lazy days in the sun. That’s what summer is all about, isn’t it? Well, for some, that’s just wishful thinking. Many business owners are so tied to their companies that they can’t step [...]
People build relationships and decide who to buy from based upon trust. Patricia Aburdene, author of Megatrends 2010 said: “Transcendent values like trust and integrity literally translate into revenue, profits and prosperity.” If you are searching for a surefire way to anger and alienate your prospects and customers, simply violate their trust and you have [...]
As a private pilot and an aviation enthusiast, I have the opportunity to attend all sorts of seminars related to improving my skills and staying safe in the skies. Several weeks ago, I attended a session sponsored by the Air Safety Foundation (ASF – an organization with a very worthy mission) that was entitled “The [...]
Focus. It’s one of the things we need to be more successful in business – right? Although I agree in general terms, it is also instructive to consider what you are focused on. Let me cut right to the chase: I believe that most business leaders and sales professionals tend to focus on the wrong [...]
“You don’t get something for nothing You don’t get freedom for free You won’t get wise With the sleep still in your eyes No matter what your dreams might be” - Neil Peart, Rush When I was a child, one of my father’s favorite sayings was “If it seems too good to be true, then it [...]
