“You are searching for the magic key that will unlock the door to the source of power; and yet you have the key in your own hands, and you may use it the moment you learn to control your thoughts.” — Napoleon Hill “Success – my nomination for the single most important ingredient is energy well directed.” — Louis Lundborg “No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.” — J

I’ve never been a huge fan of consultants, but I objectively appreciate Kirk’s approach to consulting (or ‘coaching’). See www.dandoadvisors.com Many years ago Kirk left a big 5 consulting firm because he knew they had the wrong approach. Even then, he could quickly assess the problems in a company. Difference is now, he’s not pressured to invent ways to bill more hours and produce shelved work. He’s interested in making an impact alongside the CEO of the company. Thinking in

Management is like playing sports. Players vs. employees. Coaches vs. managers. Score vs. Profits. Teams vs. Teams. Several years ago Guy Kawaski and I were playing basketball and discussing the similarities of good basketball and good business. Tonight I played basketball and it reminded me of some of these analogies…. Basketball: The more you pass (or assist) the easier it is to score. Management: The more you assist others, the more they assist you, and the easier it is

Yesterday I got my Zinio version of the June Harvard Business Review. [btw, Zinio is pretty cool offline magazine subscription reader]. The premeire article was by Peter Drucker: “What Makes an Effective Executive.” Premace: Great managers may be charismatic or dull, generous or tightfisted, visionary or numbers oriented. But every effective executive follows eight simple practices. 1. They asked, “What needs to be done?” 2. They asked, “What is right for the enterprise?” 3.

I’m often amazed at how much work is done that doesn’t really move ‘the ball forward.’ I call this ‘churn’. Churn feels like spinning wheels. In a large organization, it can feel like someone stepped on an ant hill. You’re either an ant, or the foot. Churn can be created from a random idea, question, request. It can look like analysis that is not actionable, reporting that is not used, or general work redundancy from multiple groups acting on a hot topic. Of course, when you

It’s important to set goals – business goals, professional goals, personal goals, financial goals, employee goals, etc. Ever hear of BHAGs (Big Hairy Audacious Goals)? Similarly Rick Warren of Saddleback Church teaches “Exponential Thinking”. Essentially, add a ‘0’ to an original goal. You wanted to reach 10,000 people. What would it take to reach 100,000? Stretch goals cause you to break through standard thinking. They cause you to think, “What would we have to believe to hi

The other night I attended a Texchange, an Austin entrepreneur’s exchange. The topic was “Entrepreneurs Lessons from the Trenches”. It was a broad topic, but the panelists and tables focused on hiring & recruiting – the importance of getting the right people. Here are some of the most helpful tips that were shared: • Drill below what they know, to a point where they can’t answer, so you see their thought process. • Important question: What is the most significant accomplishme

Today I heard someone say ‘critical training’ was required for our managers to do something the right way. I totally agree training can improve people – although I believe in experiential learning more. Habits change by changing habits (is that profound? If not, I read it somewhere). My father trained executives how to be better communicators. He revolutionized training in 1980 by giving executives 7-14 rounds of video feedback. What a difference it made…provides shock value

In the June issue of Fast Company Seth Godin points out the keys and challenges to bringing remarkable products to life… Guess what? There’s no correlation between how good your idea is and how likely your organization will be to embrace it. None. It’s not about good ideas. It’s about selling those ideas and making them happen. If you’re failing to get things done, it’s not because your ideas suck. It’s because you don’t know how to sell them. …Champions turn “no” into “yes.”

Recently I gave a presentation to an industry group called “How to Build a Marketing Machine” . In that presentation, I showed a simple tool to ‘processize’ your way to achieve a quantifiable goal. I call it a Workback Waterfall. It’s nothing revolutionary…but it’s sometimes the simple things that make an impact. Once you determine what you want to accomplish, you define the steps to get there and then work backwards and determine the ‘waterfall’ of variables that measure the

Execution by Larry Bossidy is a great book. These three paragraphs from the book summarize it pretty well: Here is the fundamental problem: people think of execution as the tactical side of the business, sometimes leaders delegate while they focus on the perceived “bigger” issues. This idea is completely wrong. Execution is not just tactics—it is a discipline and a system. It has to be built into a company’s strategy, its goals, and its culture. And the leader of the organiz

I was going through my corporate notebook today. It’s a hard-covered ledger where I take my notes from meeting to meeting. In the back I capture interesting nostalgia from corporate life — bingo words, quotes, experiences. I had a guy work for me that was a Cliche Master. Here are JUST a few I captured. Don’t ask me what some of them mean! Shake the 8 ball Brass tax Feedback monkey Crux Hit the Nail on the head Whisper from the Lietenant Dominus Ominus Circle the Wagons Bell

It’s hard to come by leaders who have a cognitive filter on everything they say and do which keeps the customer top-of-mind. I call this way of thinking “Customer-centric Velcro”. Business leaders must have the ability to understand business and financial needs, formulate strategies to achieve results. Effectiveness at that is an achievement. However, before a customer-centric leader moves a hand or opens her mouth, their behavior passes rolls past a “customer-centric Velcro”

I highly recommend the book "The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team" by Patrick Lencioni. It’s easy to ready, easy to remember, and most importantly, the principles are right on. Here is Patrick’s pyramid of effective teams: I found small Austin company that publicly endorses these principles. Surgient. It’s refreshing to see a smaller tech company managed this way. In my experience with other startups very few drive this culture. As a result, their growing pains are greater and risk

One of the best managers I’ve had once said, “I work for you”. That’s it. That, I believe in its simple form, is the paradigm of an effective leader/manager. This is the uber-perspective from which many of the great principles are founded in “First Break All the Rules” and “Good to Great”. Here’s what it means… A servant leader has the humility to understand they work for their employees. Not the other way around. And if they understand that, then the manager and his employee

The less time you have to spend ‘crafting’ the mission statement, the more likely it is to be real to the true character of the...

Great ideas are like helium…they float from the bottom, rather than fall from the top. Great companies are built on great people with great ideas who can execute. But typically the great ideas are in the unharvested minds of customers and employees. Unfortunately, the idea needed to solve a problem today may have been the one that was overlooked, ignored or forgotten when it was proposed in a random meeting a month ago. How do you unearth and track new ideas, projects, and so

Many of my employees forget their accomplishments. It’s sometimes difficult to know what to ‘track’ as a project or to log as a history of your accomplishments. Here’s some ideas: Anything that will make a material/visible impact to the business Anything worth sending out an announcement for or celebrating Anything that is worthy of a resume bullet. Anything that requires more than a week’s worth of work or takes longer than a few weeks to launch. Anything that looks like

Be Direct. This is Dell’s old tagline that I’ll now borrow as it relates to working relationships. What it means: You and I get to the point. Answer first rules. Integrity and transparency. Honest feedback prevails. Dispassionate conversations on controversial issues. How much time will we save, how much trust can we build, how much more can we get done if we’re direct?

The one page rule reminded me of something related to presentations… It is said most people remember only 10% of what is presented to them…and that dissapates over time. And even then is this knowledge actually applied to anything useful. What a waste! There are three things I try to keep in mind when presenting, even for an operations review: 1. What’s the story? Every story has a plot, context, characters. What’s the headline of the presentation if it were written as a ne