Remember that old slogan “Nice guys finish last”? Well, that is the opposite of the way I have operated over my career and in the end it has always proven to work out pretty well. On the other hand, I have witnessed a lot of not so nice guy stories that have ended disastrously. There […]

What are you going to do?  Companies, like people, get tired. I have seen companies just lose their focus, their “raison d’etre” and just well, kind of fade away. More than once have I sat in the office of a company owner trying to console him while he asks me to “get him out of […]

I am currently in the middle of a great book by Will Guidara called “Unreasonable Hospitality: The Remarkable Power of Giving People More Than They Expect.” And yes it’s about my new favorite subject: customer service…exceptional customer service and how it can affect not only the way your business is run but what your customers […]

I have to admit that when working with companies I get frustrated by their fear of, well, everything. I have always believed in the FDR statement. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” That is as true a statement today as it was ninety years ago when that great president said it. […]

Show me an ineffective leader and I will show you a poor communicator. So often leadership is all about successfully conveying a message to the team. A true leader is able to deliver a solid and clear and yes, effective message, to those following her. Effective communications have often shaped history. Like this one from […]

Being the best is never easy. When you study the life of elite athletes, for example you will find some of the same list of characteristics. And at the very top of that list is hard work. Plain old hard work. These athletes work harder than anyone else. They are the first ones there in […]

How to tell if you have a true leader in your midst. Great leaders make things happen. Great leaders inspire people to follow their mission. Great leaders don’t force people to do things, they inspire them to do things, the right things. They make their followers want to do what needs to be done to […]

I’m reading Walter Isaacson’s new biography of Elon Musk and I have to say it is great! It really gives an in-depth description of what the richest man in the world is really like. I strongly recommend that everyone read it. It is worth the time. Believe me. I’ll be doing a review on the […]

Sometimes standing still, doing nothing, is the most dangerous tactic you can take. I have found that most of the companies I work with who have got themselves in a jam have done so by not doing anything. They had seen their impending doom, but were too frozen in their fear of uncertainty to do […]

“The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” – Franklin Delano Roosevelt Sure, when the four-term president said this, he was in his first term, and he was talking about the depression and as the history books tell us that turned out to be the least of his problems during his time as […]