This is the time of year when many groups have locked in their plans for next year and are getting ready for the welcome holiday break. Many of those plans are based on great ideas that have been harvested through the year from client and partner trips, conferences, books and speakers. Instead of contributing to […]
I was on the phone recently with a colleague who leads a significant development organization in a Fortune 100 firm. She was lamenting the need for more people to take the lead on helping to craft more insightful and on-target services. It’s something I hear from many of my client firms, and when we go […]
I struck up a conversation at a conference last month with a C-level staff leader in a publicly-traded firm that has come under some real pressure for being conservative in its approach to growth. We were able to carve out a few quiet minutes so that she could pick my brain on decision-making processes I […]
I walked into the the conference room, and even with warm handshakes, you could feel the tension. This group had been working for months to pull their work together and launch a new product that was based in some great work that their advanced R&D team had completed. I had been asked to come […]
I was working with a firm in a session the other day and we had one of those moments of clarity. They had done some great work in previous meetings and had set the stage for growth decision making by taking stock of relevant hard and soft assets of the firm, carefully integrating objective outside […]
I’ve been in deep document review for a client for an upcoming diagnostic session, with the topic being growth and transformation. Like many firms, they have a complex and comprehensive ongoing plan of investment around a longer-range vision. Also, like many firms, they have opportunities to improve the clarity, focus, organization and leadership associated with […]
So have you ever been called to an offsite meeting, only to realize that there are some new players in attendance that you haven’t met before? Not only that, they are the new owners of your division? Yes, I have. Have you ever shown up to work and realized that there is a new […]
For those of us in the Midwest, summer is a really big deal. And one of the things we look forward to the most? Water skiing. Having been a skier for more than four decades now, I’ve developed my share of experiences. One of these experiences is something that happens nearly every year and […]
It’s always energizing to work with company founders, and a recent gathering of Clean Tech Midwest firms was no exception. I was invited to participate in the event, which hosted more than 20 firms from the Midwest who are in the process of preparing their business plans for both regional and national competition. I shared […]
It’s a common conversation, yet it continues to surprise me. I was talking with a P&L owner of a smaller, publicly-traded firm, when they raised the issue of how they put themselves in a bind: “I’m not sure what else we could have done. We hit the customer need dead on, yet when we went […]
