As business leaders we have one job, and that’s to make decisions. But how do we make decisions? What process do we use? Do we “go with our gut”? Or look at all the angles and reason it out? The best business decisions are those that are made purposefully, without wasting a lot of time…
In our last conversation, we talked about how there’s no shortcut to good hiring. If you want to find rare talent, you have to develop a robust pool of candidates and screen for the best people. But there is one way to do some of that work before you have a need so that you…
When you need to add a critical member to your team, whether because you’ve grown, or because you had a team member quit, the situation can feel desperate. Everyone feels overworked, especially you, the business owner. You are not just doing your job, but at least part of the job you need to hire for,…
In our last email, I asked you what you’d do if one of our best employees quits. The most common reply that I got was to try to win Nadir back, for example: “What can we do to keep you on the team?” ~ Frank McClung “Nadir, are you absolutely sure about this? Is there…
Driving to work, you reflect on your business – and it makes you smile. “I’m working with a terrific team that delivers excellent work and the clients are asking for more. It feels so good to have a strong team behind me,” you’re thinking. “When I don’t have to fight fires all the time, I…
Recruiting great creative talent is hard. The best, most talented creatives are always in demand and have their choice of where to go work. Good creatives have high standards! They aren’t going to work just anywhere. If you need top creative talent, you need to build a culture that allows them to do great work. …
So a few weeks ago I talked about three bad ways to measure your daily progress (that we all fall for) and as I was looking for some better ways to track progress I came across this post by @macsparky about a method he’s been using, it’s simple, effective and I kind of like it…
I was sitting in a cafe last week when I noticed Every Breath You Take come on the background music. I’m not a big Sting fan, but it got me thinking. Sting wrote this song in 1982, and he’s still making money on it today! From Wikipedia: The song is considered to be both the…
Bosses don’t get the same feedback as other people because it’s costly for people to call you out. When you embarrass someone, or get angry for no reason, or say something inappropriate, there may be an awkward silence, but there’s rarely someone getting up in your grill about it. So if you’ve been a “boss”…
A week or so ago, I wrote about The vulnerability of the business owner, and that post generated a lot of responses! There are a couple that I’d like to lean into over the next few emails. One business owner replied to that email by saying: Thank you for acknowledging that feeling vulnerable is inherent…