Renowned business author Patrick Lencioni likes numbers. You can tell by the way he titles some of his books: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Overcoming the Five Dysfunctions of a Team, The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive, The Three Big Questions for a Frantic Family, The Five Temptations of a CEO, and The
“Bigger isn’t better if it isn’t making money.”
In the life of every successful small business, there comes what the mathematicians would call an “inflection point” . . . it’s the point on a curve where the curve changes direction. In a business, it’s that point where an owner must decide whether to keep the business at a relatively small size, or pull
“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”
Today we have more ways to communicate with one another than ever before. Of course, we have face-to-face spoken communication which we have had for thousands of years (although we seem to be doing that less and less). We also have old-fashioned written communications such as letters, newspapers, magazines, books, etc. These too we’ve had
“How High Is Your XQ?”
Earlier this year, Eliza Gray, a staff writer for Time magazine, wrote an article about the “era of optimized hiring.” In it, she explains that many companies today are requiring job applicants to submit to personality tests. And we’re not talking about just applicants for upper management jobs, we’re talking about everybody from the executive
Five Things To Do Before December 31
Two years ago, I wrote a piece about things that ought to be done to close out the current year cleanly, and get a strong start in the new year. Since this is the time of year to do those sorts of things, I thought it would be appropriate to post a similar piece. So
Are you a bad boss? (Part 2)
My previous posting asked, “Are you a bad boss?” I then offered a number of bad boss behaviors (poor emotional control, indecisiveness, micromanaging, etc.) for your consideration. Well, I apparently missed a few. I have gotten some notes (from people, I assume, who are bad bosses themselves, who are recovering bad bosses, or who at
Are you a bad boss?
An old adage says, “People don’t leave their companies, they leave their managers.” There are lots of reasons an employee may leave a company . . . higher pay, better hours, shorter commute, etc. . . . but in many cases, a bad boss is in there too. Think about your own work experience and
“You’ve got to know when to hold ‘em, know when to fold ‘em . . . “
In the last few postings, we have been talking about entrepreneurs . . . what the profile of an entrepreneur looks like and how successful entrepreneurs tend to behave. But entrepreneurs, like all business owners, need an exit strategy, and it doesn’t matter if the owner is 26 or 66 . . . he or
Do you have the “right stuff” to be a successful entrepreneur?
In our last posting entitled, “Entrepreneurship by the numbers. How do you measure up?,” we took a statistical look at entrepreneurship based on Inc. magazine’s “Inc. 500” (the 500 fastest growing private companies in America). So we talked about how old entrepreneurs tend to be when they start their first business, how long they wait
Entrepreneurship by the numbers. How do you measure up?
The September 2015 issue of Inc. magazine is devoted to the “Inc. 500 – the 500 Fastest Growing Private Companies in America.” Over the next several postings, I’ll try to glean some wisdom from the leaders of the Inc. 500 companies . . . try to discern what they believe made them successful. But first,
