Blog
Can your staff read your mind?
Wordcount: 385 Time to read: 2½ minutes
In the ever-shifting landscape of modern business, having a clear sense of direction isn’t just an advantage—it’s a necessity. If you know what you want your organization’s present and future to look like, don’t make staff read your mind. Document it.
Customer Service Quality? Shmality!
Wordcount: 580 Time to read: 4 minutes
When it comes to delivering products and services, consistent levels of customer service outweigh all other aspects of the end-user experience. What makes a business stand out is outstanding customer service.
While there are many pieces to this puzzle, this newsletter focuses on three that are universal and foundational to building a sustainable organization.
Who Empties the Trash?
Wordcount: 697 Time to read: 4½ minutes
Daily operations often demand more time than there is, and routine can be comforting. Over time, and without thought, the familiarity of routine breeds complacency that inevitably leads to costly bad habits and crippling assumptions.
Are you concerned about where your organization may be wasting resources? Do you know your organization’s areas of weakness?
Struggling to survive in a world of constant change
Businesses want predictability and dependability, i.e., no change, while the world is constantly changing. This creates friction. Learning how to manage the environment and maintain a sufficient degree of stability is an art most haven’t perfected, much less realizing any need to try. Here, Mandelberg talks about how to do just that.
Wordcount: 415 Time to read: 3 minutes
Whadddaya mean there’s no spare tire!
“Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.”
— Sir John Harvey Jones
Wordcount: 613 Time to read: 5 minutes
When marketing just don’t work
When I say sometimes marketing don’t work, I mean it don’t work when you think you know your customer better than they know themselves. This is not an existential issue, nor is it an issue of conscious or subconscious awareness.
Wordcount: 542 Time to read: 4 minutes
The Second Operational Imperative
Long-term organizational success and sustainability require leadership’s dedication to three operational imperatives. In this post, I explain consistency of performance, the second operational imperative, and why it’s at the root of the highest, most perfect form of promotion, marketing and attracting new clients.
Wordcount: 592 Time to read: 4 minutes
You don’t know why you’re in business
The question of why a business exists has many answers based on the interests and desires of leadership and those involved in the funding of the organization. Nonetheless, there is one universal truth about business purpose, a.k.a. why a business exists. Read this short blog post for the answer and let me know what you think. Enlightening or stupid? Either way, enjoy.
Wordcount: 309 Time to read: 2 minutes
Leadership is … ???
The debate over what makes a good leader serves no purpose and has no value. The right questions are, what are the attributes of the best leaders, which apply to my role as a leader, and how do I develop the ones I don’t have. For some answers and guidance, please read more.
Wordcount: 498 Time to read: 3 minutes
We need staff!
Tired of looking for staff and finding ten “maybe” candidates for every “WOW” candidate? According to Einstein, doing the same thing and expecting different results is the definition of insanity. If you want to get consistently better candidates (different results), you have to try something different. In this issue, Larry offers three concrete ideas.
Wordcount: 833 Time to read: 4½ minutes
Everybody loves change (whether they know it or not)
Everybody loves the change they do unto others. Nobody likes the change others do unto them. Learn how to flip that script and make change a welcome guest in your organization.
Wordcount: 563 Time to read: 3½ minutes
Using purpose to combat cost-push inflation
This post contains important information about cost-push inflation and ways to improve recruitment efforts. It also includes a special section where I talk about three dumb-assed words – a must read!
Wordcount: 368 Time to read: 2 minutes
You Don’t Know Your Customer
When you being to believe you understand your customers needs is when you begin to lose sight of who your customer is. The demands on your customers that create change in their world can be completely hidden from yours. Ensuring you fully understand what drives your customers, over time, helps ensure you know who they really are.
Wordcount: 599 Time to read: 3 minutes
Business Schools Don’t Teach You How to Run a Business
The first time every new leader takes charge, they quickly realize how ill-prepared their education left them. As humorously depicted in the Rodney Dangerfield film, Back To School, running a business ain’t as simple as it might seem. This installment talks about the pitfalls and provides some useful tips.
Wordcount: 844 Time to read: 5 minutes
Profit without Purpose is Pointless
For any strategic objective to have a chance at success, the organization must have some sense of purpose. The founders of Microsoft (Gates), Virgin (Branson), Amazon (Bezos), and Tesla (Musk) built game-changing companies driven by like-minded people working together to fulfill a shared purpose. At the end of the day, without purpose, we live for today and tomorrow loses all promise.
Wordcount: 480 Time to read: 2½ minutes
When strategic plans fail
As a consultant with expertise in strategic planning, I get called to help clients for one of two reasons. They’re either trying to develop their first strategic plan or tired of having them fail. For either scenario, the reasons a strategic plan, or to be more specific, a strategic objective, fails are the same.
Wordcount: 623 Time to read: 3½ minutes
Hidden Recruiting Benefits of Business Values
Values are the bricks and like-mindedness is the mortar of organizational culture. When you and I have common values, we automatically have common ground. Common ground is where we can respect one another and find enjoyment working together. Enjoyment creates an emotional draw that attracts people.
Wordcount: 391 Time to read: 2 minutes
Nobody knows anything
Nobody knows which ideas will succeed until one does. Success stories are often written off as bad ideas that won’t work by the experts before they’ve been tried or tested. How do you answer the question “How will COVID affect my business?” Read this post and find out!
Wordcount: 578 Time to read: 3 minutes
The client who fired me
Sometimes the cost of not planning is negligible. Sometimes it’s expensive. The ease and speed with which a lack of planning can become fatal is almost impossible to grasp or prepare for. When it happens, game over.
Wordcount: 668 Time to read: 3½ minutes
The Holy Grail of Business
Do you want the successful organization you’ve built to survive when you and your leadership team are gone? Then you’re looking for the Holy Grail of business too. Read this post to find out how to create sustainable, profitable growth with generational sustainability.
Wordcount: 524 Time to read: 3 minutes