What’s your end game?  Business owners seldom have an answer to that

question—they usually lament about being too busy to even consider possibilities.  It’s an undeniable fact that your game will end.  Will you sell the business…turn it over to the next generation…or perform a daily grind until you die—leaving your family and the government...

CEOs do not create an organization’s values.  They do however clarify

Corporate values and their future tense (vision) serve as a powerful catalyst for the generation of corporate energy.  They also provide a platform for delivering on the organization’s brand promise—they align employees.  CEO  signals of cultural values, delivered by consistent words and deed,  will inspire customers, suppliers, and employees...

They hang prominently on lobby walls, get published in annual reports,

and appear on most corporate websites.  When asked to recite their lofty declarations, too many managers have to extract them from desk drawers.   Corporate values…publishing them just seems like the right thing to do so PR firms rake in millions of dollars each year creating...

Core values are personal distillations of what you’ve learned to date

.  They form a perceptual screen through which you view and make sense of the world.  A huge challenge for athletic coaches, orchestra leaders, and last but not least, business owners, is to develop a solid foundation of ‘cultural-values’ that will support a peak performance...

Leadership is about what goes on within and between people whereas management

The “I” of life’s hurricanes are your core values.  When blown off course, leaders turn to what they believe to get centered.  They understand that vision represents values in the future tense —what people believe influences what they can and cannot see.  Leaders help followers clarify a set of cultural-values for the group—then meld them...

Organizations achieve dominance by introducing unique ways of doing business

that the market perceives as adding value. A timely innovation often changes the rules of the game.  But success can be a precursor to failure.  Many innovators find themselves wedded to ideology that blinds them to changing market conditions or competitors making inroads...

Management science and technology have combined to produce a “mega change

” in stereo.  Adaptations of digital technology allow us to:  create, transmit, compute, store, and retrieve data in ways that have marginalized time and distance as barriers to entry.  This revolution has catapulted us into Marshall McLuhan’s global village.  We are...

“It’s the right thing to do.”  Most organizations have their values

posted prominently on boardroom walls, websites, and in annual reports.  Unfortunately, too many CEOs consider the “values thing” complete once PR professionals wordsmith an attractive centerpiece for the corporate table.  Unfortunately, just like a table centerpiece at...

Most leaders will tell you that he or she places integrity at the top

Groupthink is powerful: a little unethical conduct here, a white lie there — justification is available for every integrity-compromised action. Suddenly, someone realizes something is wrong, and it’s too late; the momentum has built like a leaky faucet until a drip becomes a stream that turns into a flood, drowning employees, customers and those...

My late wife’s last Christmas wish was to share this story and hopefully

 My wife and I have always loved the holiday season, but this year our exposure to hustle & bustle is restricted to watching doctors and dedicated nurses save lives.  There are only five more shopping days to Christmas and I am writing from a thoracic surgery ward.  Between each line, I watch helplessly as my love struggles valiantly to survive...