The importance of Leadership style As President or as CEO

In a recent New Your Times article on the role Carolyn Kennedy played in the Democratic Vice President search team, she made an interesting comment that I thought merited commenting on. 
“I’ve campaigned with him and seen him in large settings,” Ms. Kennedy said, “but to see the way he asked questions, listened, brought people [...]

Leadership lessons from the political scene

I just went to see the movie Swing Vote and while I would not say it was a great movie, it had a really important and significant message.  Not only for the political season we are currently in but for all of us who are in a position of leadership.
In the movie, by a quirk [...]

Interdependence and leadership

Today’s New York Times headline reads, “Shipping Costs Start to Crimp Globalization - Cheap oil, the lubricant of inexpensive transportation links, may not return soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains”.  In a number of other recent articles I am reminded that the demand for food in certain parts of the world is [...]

Change isn’t all that much fun

The other day I spent a half a day with a client going through a lessons learned session.  We had just finished the first phase of pilot implantation for a new way of managing project implementations.  By some measures the pilot was a “failure”, that is it did not achieve the desired outcome at the [...]

Where is Spirit in Life and in Business

Last week I was meeting with a group of CEOs, 8 of us, sharing some of our challenges and seeking advice and support.  One of the men had just finished sharing about the challenges he is facing at home with his son, his own health, and his challenges with falling revenue at work.  Listening to [...]

Business is the flow of energy

In a meeting yesterday I was explaining to the VP of Product Development of a $200 million locally headquarted business the underlying concept of the Quantum Leaders’ model of the 21st century business. And it dawned on me that I don’t often share the underlying precept - business is all about the flow of energy.
Let’s [...]

Why do companies wait

Ever wonder why companies wait for a crisis to take action they should be taking all along. A headline in today’s NACD Directors Daily reads “Anheuser-Busch announces cost savings to boost value in face of InBev bid”. and goeas on to say “the New York Times /AP (6/28, C4, Andersen) reported that on [...]

The Golden Rule – which one do you run your company with

We all know the Golden Rule from our childhood – Do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or love thy neighbor as thyself or any number of other variations. 
 Then somewhere in our business life we learned another version of the Golden Rule that read – “He who has the Gold [...]

The Business Case as a Management Tool

Business cases & plans seem to have a bad reputation these days, particularly in the start-up/early-stage  venues.
Why is this the case?
It appears that the aversion to business plans is the highly suspect nature of the financial business cases, particularly as they relate to sales revenue projections on the 2+ year horizon. Such skepticism may be [...]

The Challenge of Investing in People

Have you ever heard a board member, or perhaps even a CEO say, “The Company sure invests a lot in trainings, meetings, and “feel good” stuff, and I wonder if more of those resources and energy went into focus on results whether we would be better off?”  When we ask the CEO to focus on [...]

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