Five Failures or Five Reminders?
Take this short quiz (courtesy of the speakers at the Fortune Leadership Summit in Orlando a week ago) and see!
Take this short quiz (courtesy of the speakers at the Fortune Leadership Summit in Orlando a week ago) and see!
If a tsunami affected your business tomorrow, would you still stay on track with your plan? A few years ago, that exact scenario happened to one of our clients, who was implementing the “Habits”. Thanks to the Habits, the executive team had a plan, were aligned to their priorities, and had great meeting rhythms. The whole company remained focused, despite the turbulence and they still hit most of their goals for the year. So what's your "tsunami" goal? If your business was affected by a major crisis tomorrow, would you be able to stay focused on your goals and deal with the disaster too?
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.
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.
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.
At a CEO dinner that I attended last night, Craig Burris, the President and Founder of SmartCEO magazine, asked me a thought-provoking question that led to an intriguing dinner conversation amongst our table members. “What is your personal mission?”, he enquired. And quickly followed that up with, “And what’s your vision for your company?”