In my work with Jim Horan, founder and chief architect of The One Page Business Plan (tm), I have become enamored with his question, "Who does the best thinking in your organization?" This question not only makes leaders think, but often act very differently. Good leaders recognize that if they are the best thinkers then [...]
About two years ago I was asked to evaluate some up and coming executives for a client. One of the people was destined to be international sales manager on a fast track. After meeting with individual and discovering her background and career aspirations we completed a more formal assessment process including personality and intellectual testing [...]
For many employees, seeking higher rungs on the corporate ladder is a strong goal. The perceived control of being a manager and a leader however is often not well thought through. Today I interviewed a young woman who was in hot pursuit of her bosses job. However, upon using a personality test and carefully interviewing [...]
“What do we have to do today to be ready for an uncertain tomorrow?” Peter Drucker. What’s up with strategic thinking? How important do you think strategic thinking is to the success of your organization? If your answer is that it is one of the most important skills for you, your leadership team and all [...]
Earlier we had talked about how businesses can benefit from cultivating their own leaders. There is no doubt that much can be said for molding managers from your existing employee pool. Many companies do want to promote from within, fully understanding the benefits of internal growth opportunities, but not all businesses understand how to develop [...]
Any business owner or CEO knows that their company's leaders are crucial to the success of their business. Poor leaders equate to poor employee satisfaction and, as a result, poor performance. It is no secret that poor performance has a direct impact on your business's bottom line. Unfortunately, not all businesses are properly cultivating the [...]
We all hear the term “good team leadership” in our day-to-day business activities, but do we really know what the words mean? Do we understand how to develop good team leadership and how to make sure our management teams understand the fundamentals of this crucial business concept? If you think that good team leadership simply [...]
In the business world, each and every employee must take some accountability for his or her own engagement. However, it is important to remember that there is a direct correlation between the level of your employees' engagement and the level of your company's employee retention. Which brings up the question, just how engaged are your [...]
It has long been a standard tradition that a professional must possess certain business skills to succeed in the workplace and that businesses should offer continuing education opportunities to help their employees succeed, thereby helping the business flourish and grow. It seems, however, that reading, writing and arithmetic are no longer the sole basis of [...]
"Don't handicap your children by making their lives easy." – Robert A. Heinlein "We can really respect a man only if he doesn’t always look out for himself." – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe One of the most challenging issues for family owned businesses has to do with the succession of a son or daughter as [...]