Suspension bridges provide an excellent graphical representation of six characteristics common to successful organizations whether they are for-profit businesses, charitable entities or membership organizations. For centuries, people have built suspension bridges to cross otherwise un-navigable terrain. In the U.S. two of the most famous bridges, the Golden Gate Bridge and Brooklyn Bridge, were instrumental in [...]
I have had multiple conversations recently with people who were genuinely trying to understand why their doctor’s office operates the way it does. They wonder why it takes so long to get an appointment with their doctor, and then why the actual appointments seem so rushed. Many of them suspect the physician is pre-occupied with [...]
Budgets and metrics are two tools that can either be your friends or foes. As the executive leader of your organization, you determine in which category they fall for you and your company. I’ll leave the budget discussion to the finance guys; here I want to talk about metrics. Simply put, metrics are measures of [...]
Being an executive leader requires learning lessons from not just personal experiences but also from other sources. Sometimes life lessons are the most real! Here is a business lesson learned by observing a professional pilot – business lesson #1 learned from the cockpit! On January 15, 2009, passengers had just been given the routine emergency [...]
IT HAPPENED AGAIN TODAY! It is like fingers on a chalkboard to me. As a business strategy consultant, I get frustrated and annoyed at the overuse of the word ‘strategy’ in the business world. Sometimes I don’t think the person speaking actually understands what the word means! Strategy is an outcome, not an action-oriented task [...]
