
Knowing When To Deliver Craftsman-Level Quality And Not
What a challenging time! Even the people that aren’t struggling are struggling. Still, every so once in a while, it’s nice to bump into a glimmer of light to brighten your day. Roofing contractor, James Nill did that without even knowing it. Our house manager, Keith...

Drawing The Right Conclusions From The Brady-Mahomes Superbowl Matchup
Start by understanding it was not a Brady-Mahomes matchup. Those two were never on the field at the same time. The heart of yesterday’s game was a matchup of Tom Brady and the Bucs’ offensive team against the Chiefs’ defense and a completely separate matchup of...

Relearning CEOs’ Real Job From Bob Swan’s Failure At Intel
How is this a surprise? How many times do we have to watch companies put the wrong person in the wrong job? Bob Swan was a rock-star CFO and the wrong person to lead a technical design-focused company like Intel. At Intel, the “E” in CEO stands for Enable. They need...

How To Beat The Odds And Make Equal Partnerships Work
Most of the time, equal partnerships are hard to make work because they are not actually equal. Furthermore, even if they are equal for one brief shining moment, they don’t stay equal. If you want to beat the odds and make your partnership work, you either need to...

What Biden Should Do Now to Accelerate Progress in His First 100-Days
The election was a split-decision with Biden winning the Presidency, Republicans making gains in the House, and control of the Senate yet to be determined. There’s no doubt that the more President Joe Biden can reach across the aisle, the more effective his Presidency...

Be. Do. Say. The Foundation Of Authentic, Trusted Leadership
In their town, deep in the last century, the paramedics and emergency medical technicians that staffed the life squad’s ambulance were volunteers. They were on call for twelve-hour shifts and carried beepers so they could be summoned whatever they were doing. He was...

How Naming Jane Fraser CEO Advances Citibank’s Client Focus
Ultimately, all banks are in the client service business. Their product, money, is the ultimate commodity in that its value is literally written on its face. While that can design new services, and enroll interesting partners, they ultimately win or lose based on the...

How To Set Tactical Leaders Up For Success
Strategies can be theoretically elegant and practically useless without the right tactical leaders. Too many strategic leaders assume if they just set the direction and explain it well enough, everyone will follow them and they will succeed. Wrong. The direction needs...

The Smart Steps To Reboot Your Business Post COVID-19
Even when COVID-19’s impact is diminished and the government gives you the green light, you still have to choose if, how, and when to reboot your business. The smart way is to reboot only the parts that can be successful. Then deliberately move through virtual steps...

The Innovation Versus Scale Tradeoff – Not Who, What
The most effective senior leaders are master delegators. Before doing anything themselves, they ask “Who can do this task instead of me?” Minority Business Development Agency head, Henry Childs says that is now the wrong question. Instead, they should ask “What can do this task instead of any of us?” They should do this in areas they can scale while investing in their areas of competitive advantage.