Posts Tagged ‘business management’
Stacked Deck (or why democracy is not a good way to make executive decisions)
The company had one of those ideas that could turn an industry on its ear. They approved the funding to rush the product to market by the end of the year. Then an offer came in no one expected. A large prospect was willing to commit to be the initial buyer of the product… if…
Read MorePassive Aggressive Language: 5 Ways to Say (or Hear) “No”
Will you guarantee its success? (as though you could guarantee success in anything) Will you take personal responsibility for its success? (as though you were not personally responsible for anything else you do) Will you give me daily updates on its progress? (so frequent and detailed you won’t have time to get anything…
Read MoreAn Exercise in Collaboration
Here is an exercise I use to measure the degree of collaboration that exists within a leadership team when I join a new company. I call an executive planning session. I ask each executive to identify the top three things they think we need to work on in the coming year, ( before the meeting).…
Read MoreAn Exercise in Clarity
There is an exercise I use to gauge to an organization’s clarity of purpose, and how well the executive team is aligned around this purpose when I facilitate strategy-planning meetings. I hand each executive a 3×5 card and ask him or her to write down three things. If the organization were measured by a single…
Read MoreLet’s Pick 5
It was during our weekly executive meeting at mid-fiscal year, when our leader burst into the room very excited. He had been reading an article about how the best companies in the world only attempt to do one or two new things each year. He began to explain that having the discipline to only choose…
Read MoreI’m Sorry
Many, many years ago, I was a young IT operations manager overseeing a 24/7 shop for a novelty company. Just before I started working there the company had secured the exclusive rights in North American for a little know product called Smurfs. As you may know, Smurfs became a phenomenon. Little blue trolls with white…
Read MoreBullies
Recently my wife and I saw “Hell or High Water.” I won’t give away the plot, but it’s worth seeing. Afterward I started thinking about what I would do to win, what it means to win, and how to measure the consequences of winning. And I’m pretty competitive. I thought of situations when a bully…
Read MoreYou Don’t Get To Do That
A couple of years ago an owner/CEO and I were exploring the reasons behind her discomfort with her company’s performance. One issue that kept coming up was her continual involvement in so many areas of the business. She needed to know about every customer, every project, and every issue that came about. We examined the…
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