This last week I went to the Fortune Magazine ScaleUp Summit in Atlanta Georgia. The overarching theme of the summit–from General McChrystal’s “Team of Teams” keynote to Ari Weinzweig’s change management presentation about Zingerman’s Deli–is that no one wants to be managed. Instead, our people want and need coaches. If the frontline employees have access to the […]
Archive | Management
Our Weaknesses Could Be the Key to Our Success
Today marks the 35th anniversary of Tom Dempsey’s record-setting, 63-yard field goal in 1970. For 28 years, Dempsey was the sole owner of the record until his feat was equaled by Jason Elam in 1998, then again by Sebastian Janikowski in 2011, and David Akers in 2012. On December 8, 2013, Matt Prater of the Denver Broncos topped it with a 64-yard […]
Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast
My new favorite baseball team is the Washington Nationals. This is mostly because, as a father of four former little-league or high school baseball players, I’m a fan of Vegas-native baseball phenom, Bryce Harper. The Nationals didn’t make the playoffs this year, to the surprise of almost everyone familiar with Major League Baseball. They were a consensus pick […]
Successfully Exiting Your Business
Last weekend, I ran into an old friend who was a little frustrated. He said he is still trying to retire by exiting his business. He has tried twice and not succeeded either time. It reminded me of the old saying that “it’s easier to get into business than to get out of it.” Many […]
The Value of Business Coaching
Michael Jordan had Phil Jackson. Steve Jobs had Bill Campbell. Meg Whitman had John Thompson High performers in any field typically have a coach or mentor to help guide their major decisions. Several times in my career, I have found value in a business coach both for myself and the senior executives that reported to […]
Pareto Principle: Determining Key Drivers
In 1906, Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto created a mathematical formula to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in Italy, observing that twenty percent of the people had eighty percent of the wealth. The principle does not just apply to economics. In fact, the pattern occurs in almost every natural and social system. Pareto himself showed that […]