Margaret Reynolds We have read the descriptions of “great leaders” from many of the best minds in business—the “level 5 leader” in Jim Collins’ book, the concept of the “leadership duo” in Blueprint to a Billion, and the classic Leadership Gold by John C. Maxwell. And, as Maxwell says, “The toughest leader to lead is ourselves.” The key difference between a …
I couldn’t let this occasion pass without expressing my personal gratitude and humble appreciation for life in general, my family and friends and my colleagues and clients. The first two may be obvious, so let me elaborate on the latter. I am honored and humbled every day to come alongside business leaders and executive directors …
Quick wins seem like the antithesis of long-term performance. Yet strategic leaders realize that quick wins are in their arsenal of tactics, because it helps them achieve the holy grail of business leadership–sustainable long-term performance that beats the industry. As desirable as that is, less than 13% of businesses are able to sustain moderate single-digit growth …
How much does a good strategic plan cost? How much is it worth? Is it an expense or an investment? How do you be sure you get a good ROI no matter how much you spend? Margaret Reynolds shares her approach with strategic leaders to ensure they get the best value for planning they possibly …
For many business leaders, answering the question “When to Change Course” is one of the toughest. How long do you stay the course and under what conditions do you decide to change? The “right” answer, the one that studies correlate with the best performance, is “very rarely”. Surprised? You and most other leaders may be, …
Strategic planning implementation is known for being fraught with problems and achieving lower-than-desired results. Depending on what source you read, 70-90% of strategic plans that fail, do so in execution. Strategic planning is almost synonymous with “dusty book on shelf”. Why? There are three reasons: Action Planning–People don’t know what is expected of them: Often strategic …
Like most things, strategic planning success varies wildly. Most of us have participated or even led the process but how well it has worked is another question. Given the freshness of the World Series, allow me to compare it to professional baseball. All the teams play the game but by the end of the season …
When speaking with Vistage members about strategy, the most common complaint is the difficulty of effective implementation. In fact, depending on what report you read, 70-90% of plans that fail do so because of poor execution. Not only that, but plans that “work” only achieve 66% of potential value. Ouch! That is a lot of …
Every company has a culture, just like every company sells something–a product or a service. However, just as in products, there is a wide variety of cultures. The two most important categories are purposeful cultures and default cultures. If you don’t have one, you definitely have the other. Based on observation of hundreds of small …
Unlike internet surfing at work, gambling at work is a vice that has been around for many many years. Even with modern day management practices, we have not eliminated this troubling habit. In fact, it seems more and more leaders are playing the odds—and don’t even know it! The truth is that leaders are making …
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