“If you chase two rabbits, both will escape.” A sign with this Chinese proverb hung on my office wall for a long time. A reminder of the penalty for a lack of focus. However, I’ve built my consulting practice around the need for eight essential disciplines – Build a Healthy Culture Hire, Keep, and…
Thanks for inviting me. While you’re enjoying the Photoshop version of me awkwardly crashing your staff meeting, I hope you’ll carefully ponder your answers to the questions. For all of these, I’d want to go around the table and hear from you and your leadership team. What are you working on right now that has…
I obviously can’t make you do any of them, but if you do, you’ll change the trajectory of your organization in 2025.
I’ve been asking myself that question. And now is the right time to ask it. The time between now and mid-December has been called the “100 day sprint” or “the most important 100 days of the year”. Why? Because everyone is back in the office after summer, back in the routine and hunkered down for…
It’s been my privilege to work with several family businesses over the last 13 years. In some, the owners have no day-to-day responsibilities, but have turned over operational responsibilities to a CEO or GM. In others, they are both owners and operators. These clients have spanned several industries. However, in one business discipline, for both…
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that six years ago, you had no idea what shiplap was. Neither did I. But thanks to Chip and Joanna Gaines and their hit HGTV show FixerUpper, shiplap is now part of the national consciousness. Everyone wants at least an accent wall’s worth of…
When a new initiative is rolled out in an organization, it’s often with a great deal of hype and enthusiasm. Everyone buys in and adoption is good, but then work life starts to happen. And that’s the problem with work life – there’s so much of it. The initial enthusiasm for the new initiative gets…
I have one of those jobs – Strategy Consultant. Even after following the advice of branding and messaging experts, what I do doesn’t seem to be crystal clear to the people I want to reach the most. Thankfully, I got some help recently from one of those very people. This potential client and I have…
For those of you who had a quick flashback to high school sports complete with cheerleaders, sorry about that. But, in the age of POS systems, big data, analytics and visualizations, it’s hard to believe we’re still asking this question. Most of our businesses, even small businesses, are awash in data – transactional data from…
There’s not a better job in the world than being a consultant. I have the opportunity to see the inner workings of multiple industries and competitive companies inside those industries. And, I get to work with great, smart people all the time. The one thing I can’t do, however, is make decisions for clients. I…