Many words can describe successful CEOs: smart, aggressive, resilient, etc. So why is “frustrated” one of a CEO’s normal states? First, it’s all those people around you! People come in many models with poorly written instruction manuals. Different things motivate them. They have different skills. And they must work together! This creates the wonderful puzzle […]
Recent news from Ukraine is that four top Russian generals were killed on the battlefield. The story goes on to identify this sad but unique fact because of the top-down leadership style that Russia still hews to. Only “the big guys” are smart enough to make the tough decisions so they must be on the […]
After returning from a recent trip, I called my wife from the airport to see if she wanted to get dinner. She’d already eaten and said the fridge was bare, so I decided to use my monthly “grease and salt” ration and stop at a drive-thru. I pulled into the burger joint drive-thru with three […]
As I write this, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics just finished, and I just watched arguably the most talented skier ever — Mikaela Shiffrin — make tragic mistakes in three events she had a high likelihood of winning. Shiffrin is on the podium so often that when she doesn’t do well, it’s shocking — though […]
I frequently interact with entrepreneurial types who find themselves running a growing organization and have little idea how to do so. They never worked in a larger organization, never had a mentor who was a talented leader, never went to school or training programs for management, never had a leadership coach, and never studied and […]
Man, what a year … again! If you’re a leader, you’ve probably had a challenging, fascinating, maddening, out-of-the-box, over-the-top year — probably two in a row. Pandemic or not, December is the right time to block out a day and look back to learn and forward to jump-start 2022. You can certainly do this alone, […]
I had a three-hour drive from a client meting to the airport recently through mountainous terrain. Luckily, my rental car had satellite radio. I was listening to the news on NPR when a feature piece on reducing traffic accidents came on. If the two-lane road were not full of curves (or if I were driving […]
There’s a crazy, one-day, annual bike race in France called Paris–Roubaix, which starts in Paris and ends in … oh, you guess! It’s 160 or so miles of hell. Although relatively flat, much of it is on a narrow, muddy cobblestone path. It’s like trying to ride on marbles on ice. The announcers constantly yell […]
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 […]
Some recent interaction with a large medical provider left me with appreciation for great care, but also questions around their operating practices (e.g., scheduling and follow up calls). Questions like, “Why don’t they fix this?” (You and I know the answer; it’s not a priority!) If I had several glitches in service, imagine how many […]