I know we’re all looking forward to turning the page on 2020. It’s been a year. But things don’t automatically improve just because we change the calendar, right? If you want 2021 to be different from 2020, you need to take different actions and make different decisions. It’s not automatic; you have to make it…
How do you review a year like 2020? In a normal year, November is when I pull out my goals for the year and see how we’ve done. Maybe there are one or two areas where I can buckle down the last 6 weeks of the year and make up the gap between my January…
Consider the role of French cooking. The techniques and recipes of the French chef have changed the way the world dines. Chefs from all corners of the world travel to France to learn from the masters there. Yes, French chefs know how to make outstanding meals, but they can’t do it without the freshest, most…
I sat down today to write about uncertainty, but I’m not making much progress. Why? Well, I’m not sure what to say . On the one hand, we’ve been living with a lot of uncertainty all year. Uncertainty about our health and the health of those we care about. Uncertainty about our businesses, what’s changing…
Let’s say we were sitting in your strategic planning meeting this time last year, and we were planning out your strategy for 2020. Now imagine that I stood up in that meeting and said, 2020 is going to be a unique year! There will be a global crisis so severe that the government is going…
If you run a B2B business, this is “go time.” We’re in the playoffs. It’s showtime. Use whatever metaphor gets your juices flowing, but it’s a crucial time to set your business trajectory for 2021. Over the next 100 days, your clients are making plans for 2021. They are setting priorities, creating budgets, and laying…
Neo was happy in the matrix – as long as he didn’t know it existed. But once he took the red pill, he could see the world as it really is. Did that knowledge make him happy? No, it turned him into a revolutionary whose very life was in danger! When we lead our clients,…
When you started out on your entrepreneurial journey, what were you looking for? If you are like most people, you’ll answer some mix of, “I wanted to be your own boss,” have more control or freedom, try something new, and make more money. Also, if you’re like most people, you aren’t feeling as free or…
2020 started with protests in Hong Kong, then bushfires in Australia. In the US, we had impeachment hearings and an over 1000 point drop in the stock market. Then came COVID and shutdown/quarantine, which sent millions of workers into a long work-from-home (with children “e-learning”) experiment. That was just the first quarter. Since then, we’ve…
Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great, tells the story of James Stockdale. As a POW in Vietnam Stockdale experienced almost continual torture with no way to know when it would end. When asked how he survived he said, “You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end — which you can…