THE POWER, AND VALUE OF TRUST

The caller was British. With a hint of Dutch. He owned a smallish ($25mm) company a few hundred miles from me, and needed a CEO and Board Member. He wanted to take the lumber from the woods, bring it to the mills, make logs from it, and sell it. Clearly, it was not a...

Judgement. A Necessity in the C-Suite.

As we sauntered through the bucolic hills and valleys of Western Pennsylvania, my friend and colleague looked at me and said, “What were they thinking?” It was a rhetorical question. The subject was judgment, and how sometimes it is not used by operating executives....

Empathy

A recent 60 Minutes Report featured David Kelley, co-founder of IDEO. David and his company were instrumental in designing many of Apple’s early products. In that segment, the reporter asked Kelley what unique qualities or characteristics IDEO brought to a design...

The Actions We Take

No matter your political stripe, the IRS spectacle before us is compelling. How do employees that largely possess common sense, are educated, and respectable law abiding citizens do such dumb things. The answer lies in leadership, and the culture advanced by example....

Hire the BEST

Everybody talks about hiring the best people, but few actually do it. Why?  Hiring, like cooking, driving, or playing golf is a learned skill. Once you learn a process, steps, and follow them, your success rate improves dramatically. For 2012, hopefully, the beginning...