How to Simplify Painful Business Decision Making

businessman and businesswoman making a decision at a table with lots of papers and a laptopOne of my clients, a small software company in Detroit, had this a-ha moment in our recent quarterly session. “With great power comes great responsibility. We have great power (talent on our team), and we’re not being responsible because we aren’t focusing it effectively.”

Fortunately, they have great people on their team that fit into their culture and are extremely talented. Unfortunately, several team members are bringing in too many new ideas and opportunities for the team feasibly to pursue.

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Your Business May Be Growing Bad Apples

rotten apple on a treeHave you ever picked apples at an apple orchard? Trees burgeoning with plump, perfectly shaped apples, ripe for the picking. Growing up in California, we had such a prolific tree in the backyard of our house. During August and early September, Mom would send me out to pick the apples and gather up the strays lying on the ground. I’d haul them into the house with a bushel basket and Mom would turn most of them into applesauce. The very best specimens were sliced up, covered with dough and baked into Mom’s excellent apple pie.

Most of the apples, hanging enticingly from the branches, looked perfect. Or at least until you grabbed one and studied it more carefully. You know, one side of the apple looked great, but when you turned it over you’d find a wormhole or a deep bruise. Damaged goods.

But how many times have you taken a bite before performing your due diligence—checking it out from every angle?

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Do You Have a Business Team That Can Win?

closeup of a basketball player "palming" a basketballImagine the scene: you enter the packed press room and immediately sense the energy from the crowd of reporters. You take a seat at the long table amidst what seems like a sea of cameras, microphones, tangled wires, and bright lights. A reporter from Entrepreneur Magazine stands to ask the first question, and a hush falls over the room. “How confident are you that your team can take you all the way to the championships this year?”

How would you answer? Are you confident in your current business team? If you were struck with fear at the thought of answering that question honestly in front of reporters and cameras, or anyone for that matter, keep reading.  

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Why Great Bosses Don’t Tell You What To Do

Female boss listening to two employees If you’re like most bosses, you do most of the talking. Frankly, this one-way-street behavior needs to change. Your job is to ensure that the dialogue is 80/20, where your direct report is doing 80% of the talking and you’re talking only 20% of the time. The only way to make that happen is to ask questions instead of making statements.

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Four Ways the “Blame Game” Can Kill Your Business

business people at a meeting passing blameWhen we begin implementing EOS with a company, we always ask the leaders to commit fully to the journey ahead – the journey to become their very best as a leadership team. One of the specific things that requires is to take responsibility for everything that you and your fellow leaders have created in your organization. Like a lot of things in EOS, that sounds easy – but it’s hard and very rare.

What we’re talking about is avoiding the blame game, which is so common in lean, fast-moving organizations. Most readers of this blog know the feeling well – you’re sailing along, growing and prospering, and then all of a sudden you hit the ceiling. You’re stuck or derailed by a major problem, or by hundreds of little ones. It’s frustrating and scary – and when you’re frustrated and scared your emotions can get the better of you.

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Why Fewer Meetings Could Be a Greater Waste of Time

GPS-fewer-meetings-greater-waste-of-time.jpgA client of mine in the manufacturing industry recently experienced an a-ha moment about how often their team should meet. They had tried everything under the sun to find the right meeting pulse—daily meetings, weekly one-on-ones, weekly meetings, bi-weekly meetings, monthly meetings, cross functional meetings…you name it. Nothing seemed to be working effectively, and they were getting frustrated. And no matter what they did, they were wasting too much time in meetings, and not getting stuff done.

The a-ha wasn’t just how often their meetings occurred—it was what they were doing (and not doing) in the meetings that was amiss.

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