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Great CEOs Never Micro-Manage(?)

August 13, 2008 by Steve Roesler
with 74 views
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Management Issues just ran a provocative headline: Great CEOs never micro-manage When I see the word  "never," it raises a flag. I seldom recall "never" being very helpful unless the issue is related to piloting an airplane, skydiving, or Quality Control at a nuclear power plant. Here is the heart of the research: A study by... [read more]

When Bosses Get Good Scores

August 12, 2008 by Steve Roesler
with 68 views
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"The persistent, spirited craving we have for connection, meaning, relevance, peace -- can't really be abandoned because from 8-to-5 we have a job, can it? More and more and more we see people bringing their humanity to work, and finding ways to specify what's really important. Less is more. Seems to me the only time more is more is... [read more]

Guess and guess again

July 6, 2008 by Wayne Wilson
with 45 views
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One of the difficult tasks of management is identifying when a strategy needs to change. While managements use brainstorming and other techniques, which rely on the wisdom of crowds (the notion that two or more heads are better than one), in strategy development, they often fail to regularly re-assess the various underlying economic and... [read more]

Creative Difference in Teams

July 4, 2008 by Albert Wenger
with 64 views
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A frequently asked question in panels on startups is whether it is possible to start a company by oneself. The answer is clearly yes and it has been done many times before. But there is a lot to be said for being able to work as a team. There are obvious benefits like being able to better cover the many disciplines required in a startup... [read more]

Barriers To Sustainable Performance

June 26, 2008 by Skip Reardon
with 29 views
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"It may be overly simplistic to say that a company’s success depends on the quality of its communication and internal dialogue. But look at the top and you’ll see that a leader who is authentic is a leader who has inspired clear and honest communication."So begins the Ivey Business Journal article "The New Leadership Challenge: Removing... [read more]

Pickup lines for VCs

June 1, 2008 by AlexanderMuse
with 54 views
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Guy Kawasaki has ten pickup lines used by entrepreneurs: You say: “I’m bright and ambitious.” Investor thinks: “That’s a relief because I usually invest in stupid and lazy people.” You say: “I’m a blue sky thinker.” Investor thinks: “You have no business model, and you don’t know how to ship.” You say: “I don’t know much about your... [read more]

Delegating without freaking out your clients

April 26, 2008 by Becky McCray
with 136 views
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Getting past the point of being a one-person, do-it-all, no-rest-for-the-weary business means helping customers to work with your employees or subcontractors, as well as you. But if every client thinks you need to do every thing, how do you keep them from freaking out when you delegate their work?This problem is common in reputation... [read more]

Self Confidence and The Last Lecture

April 14, 2008 by Bud Bilanich
with 118 views
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Today is Monday, so this post is on self confidence. Did you watch the ABC TV special last week about Randy Pausch?  I hope so.  Dr. Pausch is a professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  In September of 2006, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and cancer that has a 4% survival rate.  He delivered his "Last... [read more]

Limitations for limited partners?

April 9, 2008 by Nina Kaufman
with 140 views
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Here's a disturbing thought:  imagine that you're a limited partner in an entity that's a limited partnership.  By definition, you're liabilities are supposed to be limited -- that's why you're a limited partner.  It's the "general partner" who's usually left holding the bag when it comes to claims and liabilities of the... [read more]

4 Steps to Creating a Powerful Vision Board

April 7, 2008 by Bud Bilanich
with 128 views
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Today is Monday, so this post is on self confidence.  I’ll get to that in a minute. Yesterday, I went to see “Shine A Light”, a Martin Scorsese film of a benefit concert the Rolling Stones played a couple of years ago for Bill Clinton’s foundation at the Beacon Theatre in New York.  Shine a Light brought back a lot of... [read more]

Patience

March 31, 2008 by Jeff Cornwall
with 164 views
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Monroe Carell, former CEO of Central Parking, talked to our students this morning about his journey of taking the eight parking lots his father owned and turning it into the largest parking company in the world. It was interesting to hear him talk to our students about the importance of patience, especially given the impatience of GenY... [read more]

Forgetting the Five Steps

March 25, 2008 by Barry Moltz
with 130 views
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As humans, we all seek meaning. Some of us seek “the truth”. Alot of business authors claim their teachings are “the truth’ or “the way”. I agree with Buddha when he said, “Don’t accept the claim of truth of different sages and teachers including mine. You have to test the validity of the truth yourself [...]Link to original post [read more]

Get in the Game

March 10, 2008 by Bud Bilanich
with 94 views
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Today is Monday, so this post is on self confidence. The other day, I came across a quote from Dwight Eisenhower.  “Pessimism never won any battle.”  I agree.  In fact, I believe that a true pessimist would never even join the battle for fear of it being lost before it began.  The recent Super Bowl was a good... [read more]

Has your company reached a "strategic inflection point"?

February 18, 2008 by Wayne Wilson
with 47 views
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Andy Grove, co-founder and former CEO of Intel, once defined “strategic inflection point” as “a time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change.” The fundamentals may be changing because of: New competitors, Emerging technologies, Maturing markets, or A host of other reasons. But the key challenges for the... [read more]

Feedback drives performance

February 4, 2008 by Wayne Wilson
with 113 views
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Owner/CEOs, themselves frequently entrepreneurs, sometimes struggle to provide key employees with timely, meaningful performance feedback. And yet, performance feedback is critical to sustaining and improving performance. A structured performance appraisal program can provide significant business benefits by: Providing constant... [read more]

Peer Judgment - Get Over it

February 1, 2008 by Lisa Haneberg
with 131 views
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Here is a wee snippet of a piece I just wrote on how leaders build culture. When I talk to managers about this topic of culture and management team health, I am often asked what managers ought to do if they do not respect their peers. Here is my answer: Get over it. Unless you are the CEO or a Board Member, and unless your are in a... [read more]

How cool is your work?

January 30, 2008 by David Zinger
with 102 views
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In Winnipeg today, employees are engaged! Every so often we see the headlines. Canadian workers are not engaged. Low levels of engagement. What happened to commitment in the workplace? A new generation of slackers. Here is the temperature at 9:00 AM CST Wednesday 30 January 2008 Condition: Sunny  Temperature: -31.1°C ... [read more]

Are you keeping your clients dependent by trying to be a superhero?

January 25, 2008 by Pamela Slim
with 51 views
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My two and a half year-old son Josh is constantly trying to rescue people.  If he sees someone distressed on the news, or a child crying at the mall, he will turn to me with a serious look on his face and say "Mom!  I am going to save them!"  He then evokes the spirit of his favorite superhero of the moment (alternating... [read more]

Execution Revolution: Another "Must Read" from Gary Harpst

January 23, 2008 by Skip Reardon
with 34 views
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According to Dan Bobinski, CEO and Director of The Center for Workplace Excellence:"Never have I heard it explained so well. This one’s going to be a “must read.” That was Dan's summary reaction to an early read of Gary Harpst's new book, "Execution Revolution: Solving The One Problem That Makes All Others Easier." In his review, Dan... [read more]

Yogi Berra was right when he said...

January 22, 2008 by Wayne Wilson
with 55 views
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"€œThis is like deja vu all over again." Companies in need of transitions frequently suffer from similar ills resulting from similar causes. Here are some of the more common story lines: The world changed and they didn'€™t. What worked before doesn'€™t work any more. They stopped doing what was working. The top people topped out... [read more]

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