From the category archives:
Jim Collins and co-author Porras wrote the bestseller Built to Last in 1994. (The phrase was also the title of the 13th and final album of the Grateful Dead, recorded in 1989). That book, over 15 years ago encapsulated the “successful habits of visionary companies’, assumably the ones that would win forever, or at least [...]
In a recent article of the Financial Post Entreprenuer, Jameson Berkow shared his views regarding when a company needs to consider seeking help from outside resources, how consultants can support growth and how to find the right resource. Excerpts of the article follow. To read the entire article click here. Who needs outside resources? “The bottom line is [...]
A few days ago I posted the first five most common reasons given for NOT doing a strategic plan. To read part 1 click here. Here are five more. Do any of these sound familiar? #6 We are just trying to survive. Survival is often not possible without a vision of what you trying to achieve. It is often [...]
Undeniably, most companies have a culture. The culture is defined as “ the behaviors and actions that individuals use to decipher what is acceptable practice”. In most companies, the culture exists as a collection of practices established by an inner group–be they top executives or favored employees–an eclectic accumluation of values and behaviors evolved over time. Contrast [...]
In small businesses across America, teams of executives are discussing what to do now that the economy is back. Some are wondering why they aren’t seeing sales rebound. Others are hiring like crazy. What accounts for the difference? The industry you are in? How good your product is? The attitude you have? The difference may [...]
The recession has ended. It has been announced by economists, proved by statistics and lauded by politicians. But do you believe it? For each of us, our reality is our own experience. Is your business doing well? Are you optimistic about your growth prospects? According to Bloomberg, US CEO’s are the most optimistic they have [...]
For most of us, we don’ t want to re-create the last few years. We want to learn from them. In fact, we want to grow our businesses at accelerated rates, in part, to make up for some lost time. Yet, we have all heard, “only fools keep doing the same things and expecting a different [...]
Time and again, I hear from clients and business owners, “planning is not possible in this environment’, “well, we did a SWOT’, “We set our objectives–we use Rockerfeller Habits”, “we haven’t met plan so we stopped doing one’”, “we don’t know how to do a plan, really”, “we did our budget”. Need I go on? [...]
Most organizations strive to be the best they can be, delivering the highest results for their stakeholders. Statistics show that most under achieve against goals. Companies either under realize the forecasted potential documented in their strategic plan (most achieve only 2/3 of the potential inherent in their strategy) or they don’t realize the intended return [...]
Businesses are doing their best to produce top results in a tough market. It is not easy. It is made even more difficult because too many businesses succumb to common myths–myths called best business practice by trusted advisers such as business schools, the papers, or most often, other business leaders. Many of the myths seem [...]
