“If you can’t communicate openly, with candor, how is collaboration even possible?” says Bob Johnston, CEO and chairman of the board of directors for Front Burner, the management company for The Melting Pot Restaurants, Inc. Bob's learned that there is great power in creating an environment where employees share their ideas, opinions, and can problem-solve together in a transparent way. "The Good, The [ Read More ]
How do you respond when you learn an employee has made a mistake? As a leader, are you more likely to advise her on what she should have done—or, do you take a moment and ask the employee, “What did you learn from that?” Practicing empowering questions—rather than just giving someone a flood of advice, as discussed in this [ Read More ]
In this video, Jim Sever, fifth generation business owner, shares how connecting the company’s core values to every day decision-making improved the bottom line for his $30M machinery moving, rigging, and crane rental company. We sat down with Jay Meyer, President of JMeyer Strategies, to continue exploring the topic of core values. As a former business owner, Jay now [ Read More ]
It took patience, but Bernard Dalichau, in this video also featured on Forbes, shares how he was able to cultivate an environment in which open communication became one of the driving forces of Lavender Home Care Solutions’ success. Joe Calloway, an author of seven books on business performance, a keynote speaker, a consultant, and an advisor who helps great companies [ Read More ]
“There will always be 20 things that you're not doing,” says Srujal Sheth in this video featured on Forbes. Srujal is President and CEO of Vana Solutions, an information technology services company headquartered in Dayton, Ohio. “Either they go away, or you ask somebody else, or you get your team to do it,” she says. Learn to Delegate Successfully [ Read More ]
“When it comes to going into business with your spouse, don’t let other people discourage you,” says Margie Blanchard, Ph.D, a business owner, management consultant and trainer, best-selling author, entrepreneur, and speaker. Margie is co-owner of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, a management consulting and training company she founded with her husband in 1979. “There are a lot of great stories [ Read More ]
“Whatever I do [within our culture], I need to be able to do it for 100 people,” says Srujal Sheth, President and CEO of Vana Solutions in this video featured on Forbes. It’s one of the lessons she’s learned in supporting her organization’s culture as it grows. “The question is, ‘How do you stay small while you get big?’” [ Read More ]
What if your employees could see behind the curtain of how the company is run? Tony Schroeder, as shown in this video, took this approach with surprising results. “They know every line item on all those financial statements have a story," and Tony expected them to know it. For 22 years, Tony has led Choice One Engineering, a civil [ Read More ]
One hot and humid Saturday morning at Tasty Catering, a supervisor, Steven, noticed one of his team members was loading Indiana-bound equipment onto a truck headed for Wisconsin. Seeing what would be a costly mistake, he yelled, “What is the matter with you? How dumb can you be?” to his colleague. A culinary worker named Hugo Rios-Tellez was one [ Read More ]
“I played in the company warehouse as a kid and worked in the office during the summers and throughout my high school years,” says Kim Stout, recalling how she grew up around the family business that she now works for, Coastal Pet Products Inc. The business was founded by her father and uncle, Jim and Tom Stout, in 1968. [ Read More ]
Does your partner view the business as “our baby” or do they see it as “your mistress”? The answer helps to show how a spouse feels about your business, including the level of commitment they have. “In this context, I think that a ’mistress’ separates you—it becomes more important to you than your relationship with each other. And when [ Read More ]
The hardest resource to give is your time. As a leader, when we're giving our time to people, we're giving them love and we're encouraging them,” says Scott McGohan, CEO at McGohan Brabender. We sat down with both Scott and John Meredith, President and Owner of SaverSystems, to talk about the power of giving back, including how part of taking [ Read More ]
