Dwight D. Eisenhower famously proclaimed: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” None of us can predict the future, and as such we will always be surprised by the next big catastrophe. However, leadership implies, to prepare for future disasters. Both the once we can predict…
Category: Original Content
Trust vs. Due Diligence
A couple of days ago, I was reviewing a report from a non-profit I assist. The kind of statement, that takes you hours to work through and contains a lot of financial attachments. Everyone who read it was supposed to sign off on it electronically, and of the nine signatures, mine was the second to…
Mentorship
During my professional life, I enjoyed the council of many of my friends and peers. Many of these were instructive and helpful. Three stood out because they helped me grow over a long time and made me grow in the roles I never had before. These people inspired me, to think about the role of…
What is the Most Significant Contribution
Reading through “Owning Up” by Ram Charan, one of the most significant questions, that stuck with me was “What is the most significant contribution you have made to the company.” Why is this a question, every employee should ask themselves, not just board members? Productive Action vs. Activity If you think about today’s workplace, how…
The Next Generation to the Board
If you look at the big and mid-size companies’ advertisement, you can get the impression, that slowly youth is becoming more fashionable. However, if you look at the products, little is changing. One of the issues is that a single generation is holding the reigns and thus questions of understanding mentalities are left to market…
Risk, Failiour and Persistance
“Failure is only postponed success as long as courage ‘coaches’ ambition. The habit of persistence is the habit of victory.” – Herbert Kaufman When you ask about the path to success, most people think, that a person just got lucky. Most often they do not see the road that took a person from the starting…
Integrity in Decisions
Already Roy Disney knew “It’s not hard to make decisions when you know what your values are.” Whenever we have to take a difficult decision, we try to get all the information we can. However, from time to time, we are faced with choices, that we cannot answer purely by looking at the facts. Sometimes,…
Prepare your Business for the next Recession
Currently, the news is flashing with markers about the upcoming recession. Inversion of yield curves and the slowing increase of the interest rates are only two of the items frequently mentioned in the press. However, while the articles usually look at the consumer and investor side of the issue, the business side is often untouched….
The Open Internet – Still a Place for New Ideas
A week ago, I had the pleasure of judging a business competition. Young men and women, between 16 and 25 presented their plans for the next great business, including both their ideas, competitive advantage, sale strategy, and marketing design. It was remarkable to see, how many of these potential startups would rely on an open…
Effective Leadership
A few years ago, a new TV Series was making its way through US Television. “Undercover Boss” The premises of the show was, that the C-Officer of a company would go into the day to day work of the employees to discover the inner workings of the company. Hilarity ensured. However, the more profound message…