Blog

  Recently a lot has been made of the relationship between a CEO and their board of directors. Mark Hurd recently ousted by the HP board is a case in point. This had nothing to do with performance, and everything to do with the relationship, communication, and trust. Last week

A jobless recovery – that is perhaps the most optimistic I would describe today’s environment. I’m not very optimistic about the economy on the whole. For starters (and we could go on), there is $535 billion in commercial real estate loans coming due over the next year. What do you

Do you think of yourself as a coach? When I ask this question, almost every single hand goes up. But what does that really mean? Do we have a process? Or do we confuse sharing our little bits of wisdom with coaching? To be an effective coach, you must combine

I’ve been in and out of a stand-up desk as I’ve changed offices or moved, but I’ve been an advocate for a long-time. Many people I know use one, including my former mentor when I was at MIT my financial manager Kevin Meyer of Superfactory, who’s be a very strong

How to improve your ability to work up in the organizational chart I’m sure many of you in organizations of every shape and size see the need and opportunity to coach up. But coaching your boss, or other leaders beyond that, can be a tricky business. Despite it being one

So many things can distract us from what the core of our work is all about. Email is often a distraction, but there are so many more – Facebook and Twitter, consuming news whether on the internet or TV, politics inside your industry or company, promotion and self-promotion, and the

Want to check out some of the latest lean thinking from Mark Graban at LeanBlog.org, Jon Miller at Gemba Panta Rei, Kevin Meyer and Bill Waddell at Evolving Excellence , John Hunter at Curious Cat Management Improvement Blog , Matthew May at In Pursuit of Elegance , and Ron Pereira

Entrepreneurs and small business owners are all in search of a big return on their investment. How best to maximize my ROI? Many investing are looking for the big-R, the giant market. Where is there billions of dollars of opportunity? Surely, with billions on the table, we can grab a

Everyone wants a good return on investment. It’s no way to run a business, as many lean thought leaders have written about. But whether calculated or just a mental impression, we want a high return on investment, or ROI. But why does everyone only focus on the R? When I

This week in class (I’m running a session of Leading Lean at a client) I asked a question: What’s better between focusing on your strengths or improving your weaknesses? It’s one of those unanswerable questions designed to generate some dialogue and thought. What surprised me, although only a little, is