When she first launched Student Maid, Kristen Hadeed would create long, comprehensive to-do lists for all her employees. Student Maid is a cleaning and concierge company, but not your typical cleaning company: they only employ students, helping team members grow into self-managing professionals who value flexibility, accountability, and autonomy. With the best of intentions, Kristen says she was doing all the discretionary [ Read More ]
We sat down with Ed Baker, author of The Symphony of Profound Knowledge, to talk about the motivation behind writing his latest book, including what he says was the most challenging and rewarding part of the process. “This book provides a framework to think differently about organizations, in contrast to what business schools teach,” Ed tells us. “Living is [ Read More ]
How do you know when it’s time to add new members to your board? Tony Schroeder, CEO of Choice One Engineering, says it really comes down to how much value a board member is providing you, the business owner. (Tony is also a Business Coach at Aileron.) “When I can predict what the board member is going to say, [ Read More ]
Every business owner has something that’s kept them up at night. For Bernard Dalichau, President of Lavender Home Care Solutions, it was the thought of losing his employees. “I put so much effort into hiring them, and I put so much effort into developing them, the fear of losing people was a huge anxiety point I had,” he says [ Read More ]
“A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow.” – General George Patton Many entrepreneurs start their company wanting to build the perfect product or service for their customer. This is a big mistake and here's why. Perfect can take too long to develop. Most entrepreneurs have a limited amount of development funds before they need to [ Read More ]
“The great thing about a partnership and having a sounding board is you may not have tunnel vision completely go away, but at least your ‘tunnel’ is expanded from a few other points of view,” says Stacy Sheldon, Managing Partner at POMIET, a company that provides customized web and mobile solutions in the healthcare space. “[With multiple owners,] hopefully we're [ Read More ]
Planning and setting direction for the future of your business is integral to professional management. As a result, succession planning and sustainability are a natural part of implementing the DOC model.Even though many business owners/founders produce a forward-looking vision for their company, fears or uncertainties can hold back the process of planning for a successful exit. If you don't figure [ Read More ]
Tony Schroeder's last day at Choice One Engineering was going to be January 1, 2021. As the succession planning process began, that date started to move, as he describes in this video. Thanks in part to the company’s transparent culture, Tony was able to transition five years before he originally planned on leaving the business. Here we share 4 [ 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 ]
“When you are forming an outside board, you are seeking help from those who are in the giving stage. These leaders experience joy in giving back, and they feel honored to help.” –Clay Mathile, in Run Your Business, Don't Let It Run You In this post, Aileron Founder Clay Mathile describes what to know when getting started with your [ Read More ]
Leaders need to prepare for the future of their company. “If that company is part of your identity, why not do succession planning?”, asks Beth Savage, President of PQ Systems, in this video featured on Forbes. Beth was part of a team that built a plan for succession that was implemented when the founder of PQ Systems unexpectedly passed. The [ 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 ]
