Hard vs: Long Work As the long days of summer become the shorter days of Autumn, how are you spending your time? Are you working hard or just working long hours? Long work is done by the lawyer who bills 14 hours a day filling in forms. Hard work is what the insightful litigator does…
Thinking “outside the box” is a popular idea in the business world today. People and organizations are told to think outside the box to stimulate creativity when they need to solve problems, streamline production, establish a new product, or develop a new process. And it’s true that unconventional thinking often sparks creativity and innovation. But…
Business: The $20,000 phone call When a business receives a phone call, who answers? When a new prospect or customer arrives at your business, how are they treated? Your marketing has finally paid off, all your hard work starts to materialize, something you did created action, and now it is time to turn that prospect…
The 10 Elements of a World-class Company Highly successful organizations have certain definable qualities in common. These universal distinguishing characteristics separate good companies from great companies. Each of these qualities, these pillars of a great company, is as important as the others. Together, they create the culture of the organization. The following are the 10…
Business is full of mysteries, but none is greater than this: What are the elements that contribute to a company’s success? Executives have spent 100 years guessing about what makes a company succeed–and usually guessing wrong. In the best of times, most don’t fully understand what they’re doing right. Even fewer really know how to…
Leadership involves introducing change, but what is a leader to do when faced with ubiquitous resistance? Resistance to change manifests itself in many ways, from foot-dragging and inertia to petty sabotage to outright rebellions. The best tool for leaders of change is an understanding of the predictable, universal sources of resistance. Once the source has…
Believe in the possibility. Stand in the belief that you and your team can find a better way to do anything you put your minds to — Practice CANI: Constant and Never-Ending Improvement. Always question what you do and why you do it. All too often tasks and projects that aren’t necessarily in line…
What are you measuring in your business? According to Peter Drucker, and the experience of all my clients, “what gets measured, gets managed”. If you are not achieving the results you want in your life, organization or business ask yourself, “What exactly are we measuring?”. Maybe you are measuring nothing at all. Our clients will…
Increasing Profitability When you increase your business’s profitability, you increase the viability of your business and its ultimate value. Increases to profits leads to improvements in the flow of money to you, the owners, … the ultimate reason for a business’s existence. Some business people don’t like building profits as this increases tax liability; generally,…
If you type in “qualities of a strong/good/effective leader” in a search bar, you’ll get a thousand different results by all sorts of people. Countless numbers of books have been written about leadership, and the kinds of advice you’ll receive may or may not pertain to your field. The idea of what people consider to…
Do You Have the Symptoms of Affluenza? There’s an insidious disease going around, and it’s woven into the very culture that surrounds us. It’s called affluenza. According to Dr. Jessie O’Neill, affluenza is a “dysfunctional relationship with money, wealth, or its pursuit.” The symptoms? John de Graaf, the producer of the PBS documentary Affluenza, lists…
CULTURE OF LEADERSHIP RITUALS. I like the “cult” in culture. The best companies like Dell, Google, Southwest Airlines, Apple and Wal-Mart, have something in common with cults. They have unique rituals like 7 am team huddles or Friday afternoon pizza parties to promote team bonding. Rituals shape culture and keep it special. CELEBRATION. John Abele,…
A Business Coach Engages in Provocative Conversations. A great Business Coach hears what the client is saying and not saying, questions what you hear, by asking the right questions, pressing for clarity, and by sharing what you know and how you feel, provocative conversations can occur within minutes, not months. Let’s have a conversation! Kent…
One of the things I enjoy about watching a good basketball game is the commentator’s use of statistics. I’m amazed by the wide range of statistics used and the conclusions drawn in the commentator’s analysis of the game. Statistics, in many ways, really tell the story of how the game was won or lost. In…
To be a business that is, a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you — your business must give a good return on investment plus a full wage for every hour you spend working in your business. You can then pay someone to do your job and the business profits are not affected. The quote…
A Business Coach Reveals the client to themselves The more aware anyone is, the better choices they can make for themselves. Part of what a Certified Business Coach does with clients is to help them discover their gifts, talents, desires, values, needs and dreams, as well as comes to understand what motivates and inspires them.…
As a Business Coach, often business owners ask if it’s true that 80% of new business may fail within the first 5 years. And what of those that still exist after the first 5 years? What is the main reason for these failures? Most importantly, what is the secret of a successful business? It’s not…
Breakeven analysis is a tool used to determine when a business will be able to cover all its expenses and begin to make a profit. For the startup business it is extremely important to know your startup costs, which provide you with the information you need to generate enough sales revenue to pay the ongoing…
Technology in sport today has become increasingly sophisticated and enables monitoring of individual and team performance to levels unheard of even 10 years ago. Basic scorekeeping is taken for granted and we now see an instant array of data available for immediate analysis and magic eyes to challenge the decisions of human scorekeepers, umpires and…
Did you know that, relative to size, the strongest muscle in the body is the tongue? Business Lesson to be Learned: Always exercise good judgement when giving this muscle a workout!
How important are your roots? At the Watson Lake Sign Post Forest in Canada’s Yukon Territory you can see over 70,000 hometown signs planted by people from all over the world! Business Lesson to be Learned: Even if you never go back, it’s important to acknowledge from whence you came!
Who said: ‘Work Smarter…Not Harder’? This phrase has been attributed to Allan F. Mogensen, the creator of ‘Work Simplification’. And what is Work Simplification, you ask: “the organized use of common sense by everyone involved to find easier and better ways of doing work” Business Lesson to be Learned: Keep an open mind and listen…
In Greek mythology, Goddess Athena used an owl as her emblem. With its focused, silent gaze, the owl gives the appearance of deep thought and knowledge. Actually… The owl’s brain is quite small, relatively speaking, and its unrelenting stare comes from the owl’s inability to move its eyes. Owls can, however, turn their heads completely…
“A person’s success in life can usually be measured by the number of uncomfortable conversations he or she is willing to have.” ― Timothy Ferriss Who is making you uncomfortable? Who looks you in the eye and says, “given your skills, you could do better…” “You have enough leverage to really make a difference.” “What…
Attention Business Owners: COACHING It’s Not just for GOLF! Let’s talk about the development of your golf game. Your game has likely improved over time through the advice of others: the buddies at men’s night and the friends from work. Maybe you’ve read magazines or watched an instructional video you bought on the Shopping Channel. But what if…
You can double the power of your business communications simply by stating your primary message earlier. When business writing is bad, it’s usually: Complicated Confusing Vague Unconvincing A straightforward thesis stated early in the copy will solve these common problems. Let your readers know exactly what you’re talking about and why they should keep reading.…
The last thing you want your marketing copy to be is a features-laden description of your products or services. Most clients and customers base buying decisions on perceived benefits, not features. Think of the feature as the description and the benefit as the result. Then rewrite your feature statements into benefit statements. You’ll save prospective…
Business Game Changer – the Tiger Woods effect. Tiger has over $99M in career earnings. The nearest competitor Vijay Singh has $66m, #5 has $42m. When Tiger turned pro in 1996 the career earnings leader was Greg Norman with $9.6M. He not only impacted the game he impacted how everyone got paid. That is a…
What you learn after you know everything will have the greatest impact… Are you still learning?
Riding Dead Horses: A Common Pastime The tribal wisdom of the Dakota people, passed on from generation to generation, states that when you discover you’re riding a dead horse, the best thing you can do is dismount. However, in modern corporate North America, a vast range of far more advanced strategies are generally encouraged: Buy…
Business and Baseball Detailed job descriptions can actually make or break your business. Is this an overstatement? Think of it this way: it is a beautiful spring day and the baseball team is ready to play. The players are the best that money can buy, but someone sneaks into the dugout, mixes up everyone’s gloves…