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Helping business owners grow their companies and transition with confidence, added value and complete control.
Category Archives: Leadership
Why a Coach?
I had a special session with my business coach yesterday. That’s unusual. Typically we meet just once a month to cover my goals and objectives, and see if I am on track. This time we met for the specific purpose … Continue Reading
What it Takes to Win
Here is an article that was published in the newsletter of the United Sates Swim School Association last week. I slightly abbreviated it to avoid repeating a couple of things that preciously appeared in this blog. “What makes a small … Continue Reading
Off to Planet Ten!
I confess to being a fan of really, really good “B” movies. What is a good, bad movie? It’s one that knows it’s a bad movie, and lets the audience know that it knows. I haven’t seen it, but Piranha … Continue Reading
Whose fault is it?
In small business, we tend to give out titles with aplomb. You can be a manager. You’re a director. You are a vice president. When there are few levels to differentiate between, it seems meaningless to attach a lot of … Continue Reading
Mission, Vision and Values: Weighing in on the Definition War
The other day during a continuing education class, the old argument came up again. “These are the kind of things that belong in a company’s Vision Statement,” the instructor said. “I thought they were Mission Statement kind of things,” replied … Continue Reading
A Goal isn’t a Finish Line
I was going over some productivity numbers with a long term client. “Remember when our goal for this was 2000 man hours?” he said. “Now we are below 1200, and closing in on 1100, and with greater volume!” Everywhere we … Continue Reading
No! No! Bad employee! No!
A very successful plaintiff’s attorney once told me that there were two keys to getting a settlement in a class action product liability suit. The first was to find the smoking gun. Somewhere, an employee had told someone not to … Continue Reading
Posted in Leadership, Managing Employees
Tagged business ownership, employees, management, small business, small business advice
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Accountability vs. Guilt
While discussing oil rig disaster in the Golf Of Mexico the other day a friend exclaimed “Someone needs to go to jail for this!” While I understand his anger about the massive economic and environmental damage involved, his comment illustrates … Continue Reading
Penny wise
A client who provides Information Technology services to small and midi-sized clients was expressing frustration the other day. His company has a relationship with a business to support their employees’ technology needs. They were constantly delayed, however, by the network … Continue Reading
Do you understand where this is going? Four
I ran into a friend in the gym the other day. he is the President of a tech company providing IT services to the government. What they do is highly skilled and highly sensitive.I asked him how his business was … Continue Reading
They bite the hand that feeds them
On Friday a local columnist in the San Antonio Express News, Rhonda Templeton, wrote about a recent survey of employees lying on the job. I quote: ” Bending the truth is a long time tradition in U.S. workplaces- as the … Continue Reading
Stoplight 360
I recently saw a fast and easy way to rate your employees that makes the high performers and low performers stand out in a way that can’t be ignored. It uses Stop light Methodology: a red-yellow-green marking system. The advantage … Continue Reading