Are you leading your organization to its full potential? Often I am asked to facilitate “Leadership Seminars” for managers of organizations.  One of the best books I have found for training managers in leadership is; The Leadership Secrets of Colin Powell, ISBN 0-07-141861-X.  In his book Colin Powell introduces the reader to his twelve leadership secrets.  One of his leadership secrets is; “Being responsible sometimes means pissing people off”. In my career, I have bought businesses and in doing so, I have had to change cultures and assess the full potential of new employees who joined our team through the acquisitions.  One such employee was Mary (of course, Mary is not her real name).  The company culture prior to the acquisition put a high value on the quantity of work an employee put out, not necessarily the quality of work.  Mary had been with the previous owner for many years and was a valued employee because she did a lot of different tasks in the office.  So many tasks that Mary was unable to do a majority of them accurately, but Mary’s “Old Boss” rewarded her and other employees based on their volume of work. The new culture I wanted […]

Profitable Business Model First, Marketing Second. A friend of mine who owned a restaurant on the north side of town called me and asked if I would stop by because he had a few questions.  I agreed and when my schedule allowed I planned to stop into his restaurant (close to lunchtime because he had great food).  I met with him and his wife who both worked in the business at the time.  He said his sales were down and he wanted to ask me questions about how he could increase his sales.  I asked, as I usually do, if I could see a financial statement.  He showed me his year to date profit and loss statement.  I did a few calculations and said it looked like he was working very hard generating little profit.  He said things were going OK and all he needed was more sales.  At that time his wife, who I sensed was getting frustrated with her husband, began to tell me how they were working too hard, not making any money, and it was making life difficult at home also.  Eventually my friend agreed that they were struggling. I did some more calculations and suggested […]