Will interest rates keep rising? Will my supply chain ever get fixed!? Should I require vaccinations for my workers? Are customers’ behavioral changes permanent? Should I require my team to return to the office? I need employees; where will they come from? How will upcoming government action (or inaction) affect my business? Will my business […]
It’s August as I write this and over 90 degrees. I’m trading emails to set up a February ski trip with some fellas I’ve skied with for 30 years—minus a couple of years for injuries. I don’t know about you, but one of the worst things about the COVID pandemic was having zero anticipatory excitement […]
I hated math word problems as a kid, so I’ll make this a pain-free version with an easy question! I recently wrote about CEOs’ need for a high understanding of their financial situation and wanted to follow up with an illustrative story. I specifically mentioned that, as a CEO, you should understand your cash conversion […]
Years ago, I served on a public company board of directors with a prominent investor. Like most successful people I’ve known, a few maxims drove his success. The one I heard repeatedly from him was: “Rule number one in business is never run out of cash! Rule number two is never violate rule number one!” […]
I recently created a vlog on “When to Change Strategy” and wanted to share some interesting observations (at least to me!) of changing business because of the pandemic. There’s little joy in Mudville from the pandemic, but there are always lessons! The grocery industry has had to pivot (heavens I’m tired of that word!) dramatically […]
Stability in business is good, but only if you’re meeting your objectives. Phrases like “operating like a well-oiled machine,” “keep the train on the tracks” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” all pay homage to stability. In some regards, the CEO’s job is to create stability. Shareholders look for stable (and rising) growth […]
A fellow executive coach and I had a good call recently when he suggested that most everyone is on their heels right now, both in business and personally, and the future is foggy. As I’ve been a longtime proponent of slowing the game down and asking the right questions, I thought I’d share a few […]
We have many pine trees in our yard and love them. Except, of course, for what they do to our gutters. The picture is actually from the front of my house. After a quick trip to the Homeadvisor website and a bit of research on Google, I decided that I needed gutter guards. 10 minutes […]
I recently read Robert Gates’ book, “Exercise of Power: American Failures, Successes, and a New Path Forward in the Post-Cold War World,” and was struck by his section on Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been a quagmire for decades — never really a country, just warring tribes. The Soviets sent more than 1 million soldiers there, lost […]
Of all the questions a CEO must answer, “What’s our strategy?” is one of the most daunting. If you can’t explain it in a few sentences, how can your people execute it? Significant changes to company strategy (e.g., “Where do we play, and how do we win?”) are frequent in startups but less so in […]