When I first became a manager I was lucky. A lot of new managers are handed a team hired or chosen by someone else. I had the opportunity to choose my own team. I picked 2 of the smartest engineers in the company, then I went out and hired 3 more really brilliant team members…
Hiring season (fall) is just around the corner, and so now is a good time to start preparing to find and bring on board all those who are the “best fit” for your business. I know, scary, right? The race for talent is on! It’s not an employer market anymore. Employers are now at the…
I’ve been chatting with friends about my recent employee dress code post. They were all pretty surprised when I casually mentioned talking with my boss, Brad, about it. Apparently my friends don’t — and wouldn’t dare to — have an open discussion with their own bosses about what they should or shouldn’t wear to the office, how they feel…
As I write this, it’s the first day of summer in Chicago, and I’m thinking about taking some time off. But not the whole summer! There’s still work to be done, even though some of my clients, partners and prospects may be away or moving at a slower pace right now. The summer months always give…
Business can become very complicated, especially as your business grows. But there’s a need to maintain simplicity amid all of the chaos. At this year’s Chick-fil-A Leadercast, author Andy Stanley talked about simplifying one of the most important tools we have in business — the job description. Usually job descriptions are a page or several pages…
There’s an old joke about entrepreneurship: one benefit of starting your own business is you can set your own hours. Pick any 100 hours of the week you want, and work them. While that may be true when you are starting a business, you should be able to get away once you’ve built your team, right?…
Terence has been a solid team member the last 4 years, and in the last 18 months has really become an essential part of the team. When you hired him right out of school you got a real steal — the economy was down, you could tell he was smart — so you hired him…
I’m not going to mince words here: Request For Proposals (RFPs) are a trap, they are a bad deal and you need to stay away from them. I know, it’s exciting to get an RFP. You are flattered when an organization thinks enough of you that they include you in their RFP process. But you know what is more…
Yesterday I was chatting with a business owner who told me this: ”I just don’t know if my team is as engaged as they need to be. I mean, they are here and they do their work, but none of them are putting in that little bit extra. I feel like it’s all up to…
When I train new advisors, I clue them into something that they will inevitably witness: Business owners cry. Men. Women. Young. Old. All of them. When you think about it, it makes sense why business owners are driven to tears on occasion. Here are four reasons why I think their crying is justified: The stakes…