Margaret Reynolds The company started as a private enterprise in 1946, became a partial ESOP in 1991 and a 100% ESOP in 2002. In the last six years they have tripled their share price. If you are thinking about becoming an ESOP or want to maximize the benefits of being one, read Kevin’s advice on engaging employees …
Tim Finley, Air Force Captain and Iraq veteran, stationed at Fort Riley, knows that he has to “be comfortable being uncomfortable” to succeed in today’s world and he spreads that message to school children every time he is asked to speak. Finley didn’t just come up with the message, he has lived it. He has …
Lately I have been studying masters. We have all heard of the Masters Golf Tournament, and when you google the word masters, stories about Charles Schwartsel, the latest golfer to put on the green jacket, pop up. Or how about the masters of art or music, Beethoven or Picasso? Webster’s says a master is a noun and an adjective. A master …
Almost every growth-minded company has a strategic plan. Unfortunately, the vast majority of strategic plans I see are lists of projects that don’t comprise a strategy. Worse, they place heavy demand on resources while potentially creating new operational systems or solutions within functional areas, which may not work seamlessly with the new direction of another department. Together, this can add work, undermine results and cause companies to spend lots of money with little to show for it.
The odds that strategic planning will improve your company’s growth performance are pretty dismal. Consider these statistics:
What is the number one challenge of business leaders worldwide? Time. We have more challenges than we have bandwidth. There are only so many hours in a day and even with all of our mobile and digital aids, we can’t get to everything we would like to—whether they are problems or opportunities. As a result, many leaders want a silver bullet—the one shot wonder that solves everything. Life and business isn’t quite that easy, BUT…here are three silver bullets that can transform the performance of your company.
As hard working business professionals, it is easy to get caught up in what we know: how hard we work, how important something is to us, the nuances we think are valuable. We see things from our own perspective. However, the market doesn’t really care how we see it. At the end of the day, if we want customers to buy our goods and services, it is what the customers think that counts.
As business leaders, we admit that it is hard not to be wearing rose-colored glasses when it comes to assessing our teams. They work hard and invest a significant effort to deliver goods and services to the market. In addition, they are our work family, in many cases people we have coached and mentored over the years. We are proud of …
Over twenty years ago, a mentor of mine, Irv Hockaday, former CEO at Hallmark Cards, Inc., once asked me, “Do you think that, or do you know that?” I have never forgotten the question. It is a game changer in my book. It is a question that stops a lot of leaders in their tracks. How much of what …
Often overlooked is the importance of effective decision making. Each day every organization collectively makes dozens, even hundreds of decisions. Each of these individual decisions can either push the organization further along the focused path of strategy or put the “Whac-A-Mole Management” game into play. How can organizations improve the consistency and alignment in decision making? By establishing decision criteria. For an …
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