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Every business book you read is based on the same premise. Most don’t know it, some are afraid to say it. Here’s the unvarnished naked truth that drives every business. This post isn’t long, but it will take you and me a lifetime to live it out. The single biggest thing that drives business […]
By Chuck Blakeman – Founder, Crankset Group@ChuckBlakeman Are you an HCD Leader or an LCD Manager? Managers always choose LCD, and drag everyone down with them. Management and leadership have nothing in common. Leadership has been around since the dawn of man, but management was lifted from middle age military models and replicated in business on a grand […]
Some people defy the odds and do extraordinary things that stretch our view of the possible. Most of the people mentioned here are well known because of the popularity of their sports. Others in more obscure sports have accomplished more amazing feats, less for the glory and more for the challenge. Florida resident Amanda Coker, […]
We’ve all seen the recent video of David Dao, an innocent United Airlines passenger being knocked around, bloodied and brutally dragged off a plane semi-unconscious. What is surprising is that people are surprised. For some companies, these are patterns, not mistakes. United and Wells Fargo are very similar in their culture. We can learn from […]
In 2001, two tech guys decided to build a company around the daring vision, “to end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology.” It isn’t a tech story at all, rather a story every company in the world should study and embrace, to end their own corporate suffering. Great companies always coalesce […]
I was stunned when I heard it: “It’s our 30th anniversary, and I’m finally planning a full two weeks off work to celebrate.” This proud declaration from a man who owns a $30 million company is just sad. This is a man who lives in abject poverty, with no freedom and no clue he’s been […]
Traditional business training focuses the leaders on production. But research shows that focusing on the people instead is more likely to help your production. 95% of companies are still organized around the outdated Industrial Age factory system model that taught a focus on production. People were an ancillary, necessary evil to be managed, but the […]
Leaders have wasted a lot of time and money on two of our favorite Business Buzzword Bingo terms for the last three years: empowerment and engagement. Here’s the real skinny. Gallup says a whopping 70% of people are disengaged from their work. That’s critical because the very few companies with high engagement enjoy much higher net profit […]
Business leaders are taught to be relentless problem solvers. But that focus traps them in a downward spiral of reactive problem-solving that feels more like a hostage situation than leading. There is a better way. Problem-solving skills are at the top of everybody’s list of what makes for a great leader. The mindset is that […]
In business, one of the worst things you can do is spend a lot of energy on fixing weaknesses. You can actually fix them better by getting better at your strengths. Here’s how. In my first five businesses I spent a lot of time trying to get everyone focused on what we were lousy at, […]
