August 18, 2013
Several years ago, James Fischer, had an ambitious goal. The co-Founder of the Origin Institute, a research and consulting company out of Boulder, Colorado, wanted to understand and decipher the patterns, behaviors and the characteristics in entrepreneurial enterprises - and - develop best practices to better navigate the trials and tribulations of business growth. Six years and over 700 CEO interviews later, Jim documented his findings in the book, “Navigating the Growth Curve: 9 Fundamentals that Build a Profit-driven, People-centered, Growth-smart Company”.
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July 16, 2013
“You don’t look like a chemical engineer,”another (male) chemical engineer said to me, upon being introduced as his new colleague, as if I was some strange aberration of the “species”. (Twenty years later, I still get a laugh remembering his reaction.) “What’s an engineer supposed to look like?”, I asked him with a smile. It wasn’t the first time that I had heard that type of comment from a man upon introducing myself (certainly not the last) and why get angry when humor can often be the best response?
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May 22, 2013
Take this short quiz (courtesy of the speakers at the Fortune Leadership Summit in Orlando a week ago) and see!
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April 9, 2013
Someplace between $5M and $25M, most companies hit "the wall", and executives feel like they’re running in place – no matter what they do to try and grow their businesses. Not a straightforward or simple task as many of you know. Predicting, delegating and managing effectively take more than having the right talent.
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March 26, 2013
For the fourth year in a row, “Holding key people accountable” has been in the top 2 challenges that CEO’s have cited on our Growth Strategies Survey of small and mid-market businesses throughout the region. When one CEO in the audience, somewhat perplexed asked, “Why does that keep coming up? Aren’t you helping them to do something about it?” I was a bit stumped for a minute. The answer seemed obvious to me - but maybe not to him.
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March 14, 2013
Discovering your personal mission in life is not necessarily a straightforward journey (as I wrote last week) but it is certainly a worthwhile one. Having a clear sense of what your mission is, and being able to communicate that sense of purpose to others is an essential part of exceptional leadership – and – the basis for gaining others’ commitment to follow you.
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