Tag Archives | Decision making

3 Books Well Worth-Reading

By on April 2, 2012 in Culture & Leadership

The Synergist A business book meant for the real-working leader, Les McKeown gives an intuitive model to allow anyone to lead. The notion is that every team needs a blend of visionary, an operator, and a processor. And the often invisible but crucial role that blends all these 3 is a synergist, able to find [...]

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The Too Short Meeting

By on November 22, 2011 in Culture & Leadership

I’m about to head off to a meeting that I’m sure will be too short. Too short as in not enough time to actually discuss, deliberate, and resolve conflicts within the many ideas that could be generated. Too short to allow people to feel heard. Too-short to explore nuances. Too short for everyone to “get” [...]

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Must Read Weekend Reading

By on October 29, 2011 in Culture & Leadership

Seems like most of the content we find online starts with a list as in 6 ways to do X, or 5 ways to improve Y. Curating the more thoughtful pieces worth reading in full is what this post theme of must-read work is all about. This week’s assortment has a very corporate theme.  Must [...]

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What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Growth

By on September 23, 2011 in Market Power

Finding that first market — a few customers willing to pay for your early product – is hard enough. But there’s one thing that may be even harder. And that’s finding the second market.   Especially because companies are often so focused on protecting what they already have. In 1996 when Steve Jobs first returned to [...]

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5 Ways to Take Advice

By on August 23, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

“What do you do?” When I was starting a consulting company called Rubicon back in 1999, my nephew wanted to know what I did for a living. Having just finished running a division of a company where I was responsible for setting and delivering on a specific measurable result, I noticed I was having a [...]

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Be Unhappy

By on August 19, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

When you want to be healthy, you could focus on the good stuff you want; maybe you work out and eat healthy to have toned arms, or firm abs, or even a certain weight on the scale. But if you are unhealthy today and you are going to change your habits, you have to first [...]

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Picking the Big Idea

By on July 2, 2011 in Entrepreneurship

Most of us make things happen, get results, and deliver. But ask us if we’re focused on building our vision, on our big goals or if we even know what our big goal is, and what will likely follow is some combination of this: a big pause, or a look down at the carpeted floor, [...]

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MurderBoarding™

By on June 20, 2011 in Market Power, Talks

It’s not about how many ideas we have, it’s how many we kill so that we end up with 1 unifying, clear answer for what matters to us and why. That’s the philosophy behind MurderBoarding ™. MurderBoarding provides a framework for a group to arrive at a shared decision around 1 direction. While many resources [...]

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Culture Trumps Strategy, Every Time

By on March 22, 2011 in Culture & Leadership, Featured

Trust, fights, and child care. When I’m advising start-up teams nowadays, I ask a lot of questions around those three areas. Which makes it sounds more like a marriage counselor’s office, rather than a boardroom, right? Quite often, the teams I’m talking with think culture is some woo-woo stuff that doesn’t make any difference in [...]

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Three Times You Have to Speak Up

By on February 3, 2011 in Culture & Leadership, Featured

It was said of Abbot Agatho that for three years he carried a stone in his mouth until he learned to be silent. I was thinking about that story by Thomas Merton during a recent board meeting. The CEO and CFO were marching through their 112-slide presentation. Recent market updates, a technical deconstruction of various [...]

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