Driving home this afternoon from having lunch with two of my favorite colleagues and friends, I was thinking … what does it take to be successful? We’d talked about this at lunch – not directly, but indirectly in the things we said about our own businesses and about the people we meet at different types of networking events. What does …
Your Mom Was Right (and why that’s relevant)
There are things almost every mother ends up saying to her children. We recognize these pieces of advice and instruction as amusing mom-cliches simply because they’re used so routinely. And like most cliches, these bits of motherhood wisdom hold a certain kernel of truth. I noticed recently that many of them also apply to running a business. So whether or …
The potential cost of poor communication
I got an email from American Express on Thursday. Seems my account had been compromised and there were fraudulent charges on my card. Theft, in other words. But this isn’t a story about theft, or even about my overwhelming curiosity about how in the world did they know those charges aren’t mine? (Kind of creepy, really, even though it’s nice that they do know.) In …
Why ask why?
There’s an old saying: when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Of course it’s obvious how ridiculous that is. Anyone knows there are also screws as well as nails – and that screws don’t respond well to hammers, but work quite nicely with screwdrivers. But as obvious as it is when we look at hammers, …
Three Strategic Threesomes: 3 you need, 3 you don’t, and 3 ways you struggle
I was talking with a friend and colleague – and sometimes client – this morning about strategy. He’s a Vistage chair here in San Diego. (If you don’t know what Vistage is, you can check it out at http://www.vistage.com.) We were talking about the difference between strategy and tactics, and why some people struggle with making day-to-day tactical decisions that align with …
Got time for that?
“Not enough time” is a reason for not doing an enormous number of things. I’m convinced it’s 99% untrue. Seems to me … we do what we really want to do. So don’t tell me what you don’t have time for. Tell me what you do have time for. ShareShare
Strategy. It’s sexier than you think.
Strategy. After asking around a bit, I’m pretty much convinced that most people don’t really know what it is. I’m also pretty sure that a lot of small business owners and independents secretly believe it’s not necessary. That it belongs in big corporate boardrooms and gets developed on expensive corporate retreats … and that it ultimately doesn’t amount to much but …
Staving off New Year’s planning overwhelm
Show me a small business owner, and I’ll show you someone who’s been making plans, setting goals, and dreaming dreams. That’s what happens during this transition from one year to the next. Excitement runs high. The struggles of the previous year are set aside. The new year lies ahead like a field of fresh snow, trackless and pristine. And then …
The Power of Gradual
This post originally appeared in my newsletter. If you’re like most people, you want change and progress to be big, obvious, and fast. Yet real, lasting change and progress is seldom big, or obvious – and it’s almost never fast. It’s gradual. Incremental. Waves take years to shape jagged, broken bits into the beautiful, rounded forms of beach glass. And …
The right question … or the right answer?
No one wants to look dumb. Everyone wants to have an answer. Preferably, of course, the right answer – but at least an answer. I see it all the time. People rushing wildly towards an answer. There’s a classic story of how NASA developed an extremely expensive pen that would allow astronauts to write in the zero gravity of space. The …