Category: Leadership
Running teams, keeping trust, and the shelf life of goodwill.
Hiring slowed in September. The openings did not go away.
The NFIB September jobs report shows hiring intentions flat and unfilled openings down, while labour quality sits fourteen points above its historical average. Two numbers pulling against each…
You can’t see a remote team struggling.
The hardest part of managing distributed teams is not coordination. It is that the signals you used to read without thinking about it are simply gone.
The web designer who runs operations
We set out to hire people who would eventually not need us. Two of them now run the company and own part of it. Getting there cost more…
We’re only as good as our last job
A client of many years dropped us in November 2017, while I was bedridden after a motorcycle accident. He was entitled to. What that taught me about the…
The successful say no to almost everything
Warren Buffett’s line is that very successful people say no to almost everything. In a referral business that is not a productivity tip — it is the whole…
How to read a character before you sign
Three of my deals died within sight of the finish line. Not one of them failed on talent, funding or market. They failed on character, and in every…
A sounding board, or a shoulder
I once offered an underperforming employee help instead of a warning. His reaction told me more about how most companies are run than any management book has.
Policies cost more than they save
A company with excellent data about which customers matter can still have a system that makes it impossible for anyone to act on it.