Crises are hard enough in any business. But there are a number of ways to turn a crisis into a catastrophe with very little effort. Unfortunately, some of the behaviors that increase the odds for failure are considered by many to be “leadership.” The following are some of those common leadership responses. Be overly optimistic. There is a vast body of literature out there that … [More]
Small Companies Can Compete with the Giants
Before the Internet, small companies didn’t stand a chance against the Goliaths. That’s because no war can be won without intelligence and, before the digital era, collecting actionable data and information about one’s competitors, market and customers cost a lot more than most small businesses — the Davids — could afford. But today, the Davids are taking down the Goliaths. … [More]
PPACA Impacts Healthcare Provider Businesses
The uncertainty about healthcare that abounds among employers generally is also an issue among healthcare providers. “We seem to be at a watershed moment for where the future of healthcare-delivery financing is going,” says Greg Vigdor, president and CEO of the Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association, referring to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as well as … [More]
Health Insurance: Balancing Benefits
Healthcare coverage requirements on small businesses is a hot topic, no less so with the recent extension on the start date for employers to provide health insurance to their employees. For some, health insurance is an unwelcome expense that cuts into company profits. For others, it’s an investment in company productivity. And in some cases, through changes that have … [More]
Mindfulness and Values-Clarification in the Workplace
Over the past decade, there has been an explosion of interest in mindfulness-based training programs. The impact of the mindful movement can be seen across the fields of psychotherapy, stress management, coaching and sports performance. In the workplace, mindfulness is being hailed for its potential to help employees and leaders stay in contact with present moment … [More]
Companies Must Be Open to Stakeholders Who Criticize
Now is a new age of stakeholder activism. From single billionaires seeking to disrupt boards to activist “Davids” in the field launching stones at the temple of these global Goliaths, more and more passionate — and very vocal — critics are scrutinizing how corporations handle issues like energy, water use, conservation and social justice. “‘Corporate mansions’ have taken on … [More]
Rethinking Leadership Development
Why do most training programs fail to change behavior? One of the main reasons is most focus on the characteristics of leadership; they do not go below the surface, but, instead, focus on visible factors and address them by teaching concepts, tips, introspection and what great leaders do. But leadership, organizations and people are dynamic. Every factor needs to be understood … [More]
Ethics, Accounting and Whistleblowing
The award of more than $150,000 to a whistleblower that was announced this past October by the Securities and Exchange Commission calls attention to what some see as a shortcoming in the whistleblowing provision of the Dodd-Frank Act enacted in 2010: An employee can go directly to the SEC to report an alleged violation instead of informing his employer first. With the SEC … [More]
Wanted: Leadership Advice
The old saying “It’s lonely at the top” seems to be as true today as ever. The 2013 Executive Coaching Survey recently conducted by Stanford University and The Miles Group found that nearly two-thirds of CEOs do not receive coaching or leadership advice from outside consultants or coaches, and almost half of senior executives are not receiving any, either. “What’s interesting … [More]
Go to Bat for Innovation-Nurturing Approach to Business
In baseball, you can fail 70 percent of the time and still be considered a strong player. Why is it that businesses give an employee with a new idea just one chance? Pitchers lose games, batters strike out, fielders make errors. Instead of firing them or sending them back to the minor leagues, managers study what went wrong. CEOs need to do the same thing. Kill the project, not … [More]
Overcome Autocorrect
“Theirs a new project I’d like to discuss with you. Its a weigh to catch misspellings but to long to go into hear. Lets meet.” It’s unlikely you’ve ever received an email or other written message with that many spelling problems. But there are surely words in those three sentences that you’ve seen misspelled, and most probably you have misspelled some of them … [More]
How Can Manufacturing Increase Profits and Reduce Waste?
In an organization’s functional terminology, we refer to “money” as the finance function and “manpower” as the human resource department; “machineries” represents the plant and “materials” stands for the inputs required for the final product. In our present organizational set-up, the operations/manufacturing, engineering, quality control and R&D are combined under … [More]
Role-relevant Certification Helps in Recruiting Talent
The publication of 2012 global jobless figures reveals a deepening of the crisis plaguing employers in every town around the globe. A paradox between numbers of unemployed and difficulty in recruiting talent is here for a generation. And while widespread unemployment and the need to up-skill populations has been widely reported, one vital ingredient is absent from the … [More]
Change in Business: Threat or Opportunity?
Waves of change roll through the information technology sector roughly every fifteen years or so; for sectors outside IT, the waves may come less frequently but no less destructively. The IT experience can be viewed as a wind tunnel through which other businesses can pretest their survivability. The experiences in the following IT examples can be applied to businesses across … [More]
Seeking Sales Tax Change that’s Good for Business, Good for Cities
Governor Brewer’s creation of the Transaction Privilege Tax Simplification Task Force last year addressed the long-simmering concern that Arizona’s sales tax system is complicated, with the individual municipalities having their own tax rates. In fact, “Arizona has the most complicated system in the nation,” says State Representative Debbie Lesko (R, Dist. 9), author of HB … [More]
Navigate around the Quicksand in the Global Marketplace
Globalization has been the buzzword of the decade, yet many U.S. business managers are still unaware of the skill sets they urgently need to compete in a global market. There are 32 developed countries with 1 billion potential customers and 162 developing nations with 6 billion people, many heading into the middle class for the first time, with all the attendant needs and … [More]
Can an Organization Survive the Fall of an Iconic Leader?
Recent revelations by disgraced “hero” Lance Armstrong raised speculations about the future of LiveStrong, the charity Armstrong founded to fight cancer in the aftermath of his own cancer-fighting experience. Although some anticipate a short-term drop in LiveStrong’s fundraising, many believe the nonprofit will survive because its core mission goes far beyond the image of its … [More]
Online: Honest Businesses vs. the Fakeosphere
The fastest-growing marketing trend on the Internet is the “fakeosphere.” Yes, fake blogs (called “flogs”), fake Web news sites and fake testimonials. They look like the real thing, right down to comments posted by “bloggers” and their supposed readers. Those comments appear to be written by people discussing the pros and cons of a particular product or service, and they even … [More]
