I recall teaching my young drivers how to drive a standard shift vehicle. Many of you have been there and can probably relate – matching the engine’s churning to the car’s needs is not easy. Frequently when people are learning, they end up creating lots more power than the car can use and exaggerated clutch […]
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 […]
I recall it clearly: the pressure to get that first “deal”…as well as the relentless pressure to fill “the funnel” even though we were in a very early stage incubator within a large firm where our revenue wouldn’t have paid for the yard care. That memory came flooding back last week at a professional society […]
I was speaking for a group of senior executives last week and a great question came up: “What is the most destructive thing you see when working with new innovation teams in existing firms?” As my mind flashed through dozens of projects and larger programs, there was one thing that came up over and over […]
I was having a recent conversation with a mid-market firm’s President when this came out: “When we need out-of-the-box thinking, we need to get our CIO out of the room.” I needed to push back on this leader…not because his comment didn’t have some merit when it came to how the team was working together, […]
No kidding – This is the information I wish someone would have shared with me early in my leadership career. It would have saved me a massive amount of time, effort and resources both personally and professionally. If you’re leading a growth program that has significant new-to-your-company elements, I know the exact path you are […]
I had a version of this call three times in the last six months: “Where did I go wrong? We planned thoroughly, tested and refined our concepts and built an All Star team. Things went smoothly for about eight weeks…and then all hades broke loose. There were things we just didn’t anticipate. Now we have […]
I had dinner with a colleague recently who is heading up a new growth vector for his firm. The topic turned to one of those you don’t read about often: what happens if it goes sideways? I reminded him that everyone who has led one of these efforts experiences three phases of a journey. First […]
I was having coffee with senior co-leads of a large growth effort, and the question they had for me was, “how do we know if we’ve assembled the right team?” When you get a question like that, you know the answer is yes, they have a problem. I asked them some questions, and it led […]
