Michael Porter and Nitin Nohria did in-depth research on how twenty-seven CEOs of large companies spent their time. By tracking each CEOs time for 13 weeks they uncovered many great leadership lessons they discussed in Harvard Business Review. One highlight applicable to all leaders is the need for an overarching personal agenda or plan. The authors stated, “A clear and ...
Employers rely on their employees to do better than just their best, but to succeed. Here are four steps to having the best chance of doing better than just your best. Make sure you have a clear objective – stay focused. Be positive - your boss has given you a job because he/she believes in you. Keep learning - there ...
A recent study of more than 500,000 sales conversations, conducted by a tech company called Gong.io, uncovered that the highest performing sales people asked many more questions of their prospects. Their sales conversion rates were highest when they asked between 11 and 14 questions. According to the Harvard Business Review, the study also discovered that top performing salespeople scattered the ...
When I started in public accounting, my boss informed me that during tax season it was mandatory that I work 55 hours a week. But, if I worked less than 70 hours others would view me as a slacker! During those 70 hour weeks, I remember many Mondays spending hours cleaning up the mistakes I made on Sunday. In a ...
At eight years old my grandfather bought me an electric guitar and sent me to a music store for guitar lessons. My first guitar teacher was a man in his 80’s. Every time I missed a note my teacher whacked me on the forehead with his baton. I would leave humiliated and upset. His approach robbed me of the joy ...
Frequently I receive calls from young people who have new business ideas. The excitement of youthful leaders tends to lend itself to chasing fantasies. The most successful businesses, however, are the ones who take their new idea, develop a plan and work that plan diligently. There’s a distinct difference between focused entrepreneurs who have a new idea and creative people ...
According to a Wall Street Journal article, Pitt Ohio, a Pittsburgh trucking company, learned from a University of Pittsburgh survey that drivers who reported financial stress had more accidents. To improve their safety record and their driver’s lives Pitt Ohio established a goal of every employee having a $1,000 emergency fund. Each employee who saved $19 a week for 6 ...
Many businesses choose to hire a successor CEO from outside their organization, which is often necessary, but can prove riskier. Some of the best transitions I’ve witnessed happened when the future CEO worked under the existing CEO for a season. This method can provide for a smoother “hand off” and the ability to make course corrections if problems arise during ...
Our digitally, interconnected world makes it tempting to watch the successes of others. By focusing outside our business, it’s easy to get caught in the game of “keeping up with the Jones’.” Attempting to keep up with the competition is a sure way to a company’s demise. We can continually chase new ideas or implement unsustainable practices, without having the ...
A great example of the impact a story can have is how Spring Break became such a booming movement. In the 1950s, Spring Break attracted only 20,000 college students to Fort Lauderdale, until 1958. In 1958, Glendon Swarthout released “Where the Boys Are.” This book, which later became a movie, told the story of college girls meeting boys during Spring ...
Equipping Others to Do Work Differently
