Interrogating the validity of your business
Over the past two years, the business landscape has changed in a material way. The question of people/talent is very fluid at the moment (flexible work, high resignation rate, shortage of skills) Supply chains have been disrupted globally Inflation is on the rise, affecting margins Global access through online channels is fully accepted which has […]
A business that matters
I’ve been mulling this phrase – ‘businesses that matter’ – over for the past two weeks and I thought my contemplations might be thought-provoking for you as fellow business leaders. The phrase is important to me because I believe that excellent, profitable, conscious, ethically-sound businesses can produce good people, and that those good people are […]
The two most fundamental questions CEOs could ask
Before strategy, before innovation, before profitability, before talent management, before acquisitions, and before revenue growth there are two questions a CEO answers (mostly implicitly, unfortunately – my hope is that this piece encourages you to answer them explicitly). 1 | WHAT IS MY AMBITION FOR MY BUSINESS? 2 | HOW HARD WILL I STRIVE TO […]
The mind is an excellent servant, but a terrible master
‘Thinking’. It’s not something we’re taught to do. Ironically – or perhaps, sadly – as so much of what we do and experience and choose and feel is shaped by how we think. A lot of endeavour in the workplace is made easy or difficult by the thinking that precedes it. We talk a lot […]
A CEO mid-year assessment
I’ve heard the phrase “… this year has been a lot harder than I expected …” from more than a few CEOs of late. As such, it might be worth taking a few minutes to ask some sound questions at the mid-year point of 2022. Remember that your businesses are alive, evolving, fluid things. As […]
Today CEO v. Tomorrow CEO
In coaching processes, the coach – either implicitly or explicitly – works with the idea of ‘old way v. new way’. It’s a way of aggregating the total behaviours of what is not working, and transitioning them to a newly aggregated set of behaviours that is fit for purpose. For example, choosing to be more […]
Guidance on giving feedback to senior leaders
Linking to my piece last Sunday about the CEO ‘minimal viable product’, this piece focuses on Element 3, Impactful Mentoring. Profit security Strategic sharpness Impactful mentoring Operational tightness Conversation routines (Exco meetings, breakaway, weekly check-ins, etc.) Internal communication At the outset, recognise that providing feedback to senior leaders will ask you to up your game […]
The CEO Minimum Viable Product
The CEO Minimum Viable Product I thought I’d share a framework that I created and have frequently been using. It developed out of a conversation I was having with a first-time CEO and I wanted to give him a sense of where to start. In my view, a CEO needs to get 6 broad areas […]
Becoming an exceptional CEO is a game of inches. Impatience is your foe.
“The only way to become good at something is to practice the ordinary basics for an uncommon length of time. Most people get bored. They want excitement. They want something to talk about and no- one talks about the boring basics. Boredom encourages you to stop doing what you know works and do something that […]
Don’t put people first. Put ‘roles’ first.
The excellent book CEO Excellence shares some research about which roles generated the most value. Their findings were revealing in one instance: 37 people (out of a company of 12,000) generated 80% of that business’ value. One role singlehandedly was responsible for 10% of that value. The takeaway is this: hierarchy and value creation often […]
