In a recent edition of the Daily Herald’s Business Ledger, the focus was on family businesses. More specifically, the focus was on succession planning so that the business could remain in the family and continue to benefit family members for many generations. One of the stories discussed Klein Tools, a business that has been in
“Everyone has a number.”
While monthly financial statements are essential to effectively managing your business, they are historical documents. They tell you what’s already happened when it’s too late to do anything about it. So in addition to monthly financial statements, you also need measurements that are predictive in nature to serve as early warning signs that something may
Are you a Visionary or an Integrator?
In his book, “Traction: Get a Grip on Your Business,” Gino Wickman envisions an organizational chart with the guy at the top as the “Visionary” and the guy immediately below him as the “Integrator.” In Wickman’s model, the Visionary is the company’s creative sparkplug, the guy who sees opportunities and possibilities and is always pushing
“Accountability breeds response-ability.”
In our last posting, we talked about execution . . . about the need for meticulous planning, thorough and detailed communication of our plans, and after-the-fact review to determine what went right and what didn’t in an effort to continuously improve our execution skills and abilities. We probably should have preceded that discussion with one
Does fear of failure motivate or paralyze you?
There was an interesting article published recently in the Chicago Tribune. In it, a member of Chicago’s iconic business clan, the Pritzkers, talked about failure and the role it has played in shaping his life. While we have discussed failure here in the past, it’s a subject worth revisiting from time to time, if only
“The art of communication is the language of leadership.”
Get your workforce engaged! (104) In this fourth and final installment of our series on developing an “engaged” workforce, we’re going talk about the need for effective communication. We touched on communication in the first installment of this series when we said, “Your values, mission, and vision need to be in writing, and they need
Put the right people on the bus . . .
This is the third installment of a series on developing an “engaged” workforce . . . that is, a workforce that energetically supports your company and its goals. In the first installment, we talked about the importance of clearly communicating the company’s mission, vision, values, and culture. Essentially, those four things (with apologies to business
“Can’t lead from behind.”
Our previous posting was the first installment of this series on building an “engaged” workforce. In that posting, we talked about vision, values, mission, and culture being foundational to a truly engaged workforce. After all, we argued, employees need to know what the organization does, why it does what it does, what outcomes it hopes
Get your workforce engaged! (101)
In our last posting, we talked about the need for, and the benefits that flow from, an “engaged” workforce . . . that is, employees who are energized by their work and committed to supporting the company’s goals. In that posting, intended to be an introduction to a series on workforce engagement, we described what
Want an “entangled” workforce?
A lot has been written lately about companies developing an “engaged” workforce, meaning employees who are energized by their work and committed to helping the company achieve its goals. In fact, I blogged about becoming a “winning workplace” a few months ago that touched on this subject. In their book, “It’s My Company Too! How
