Tornado Warning? Be Prepared
What do you do when the weather report warns of an impending large-scale storm? You hit the hardware store for flashlights, batteries and candles, nail sheets of plywood over your windows, and make sure your [...]
Define the Job, Not the Worker
Your long-time executive assistant just came into your office with some good news/bad news; for her, the good news is she’s retiring to a beach house in Cabo. For you, the bad news is that [...]
Don’t Forget Your People!
So often during the consolidation that follows the precipitous drop of the Avalanche phase of the business storm cycle, companies throw a lot of money at technology and forget about the people and the processes. [...]
WHETHER YOU’RE GOING UP, OR COMING DOWN…
It doesn’t matter if you’re in an accelerating or decelerating phase of the Business Storm Cycle; the transformation is a similar process. What you’ll find on the upper slope when you’re accelerating is that you [...]
ARE YOU LOYAL TO A FAULT?
“But Dave – I don’t want to lay Bob off. He’s been with me since the beginning!” Loyalty is a wonderful thing, but don’t be loyal to a fault. If you have staff members or [...]
HOW TO WIN A THREE-LEGGED RACE
Why do so many businesses run into trouble during the start-up phase of the business storm cycle? Often, it’s because the start-up tries to run before it can walk. It needs to take the time [...]
THE UPSIDE OF A DOWNTURN
When it comes to going through business cycles, there’s always some good news that goes along with every phase, even the ones that seem the bleakest when you’re in them. Consider the caterpillar: If someone [...]
Is It Really Urgent, or Just Important?
In the business world—and in life in general—we have important things to do, and we have urgent things to do. What’s the different between the two? Well, something that is important will have a real [...]
AFTER THE STORM: Professionalizing IT
When you’re coming out of that dizzying hypergrowth business phase we call the Tornado, it’s time to get things back in order. That means salvaging as much as you can that you chucked out the [...]
THE POWER OF MODERATION
When your business is sucked up into the hypergrowth phase I call the Tornado, there’s good news and bad news. The good news is, no phase lasts forever. That’s also the bad news! The faster [...]