Category: leadership

Three things to get your team to trust you

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Among the biggest challenges for corporate leaders is to establish trust. It’s not difficult to understand why. Most management positions are filled by the person most successful in a non-managerial role, not the person who exhibits the most leadership potential. Unsure of what to do or how to behave, they emulate their superiors, most of whom got their role the same way.

The default mode of the worst bosses turns people off. Many are unwilling to admit what they don’t know and often act on impulse. They lack empathy, often expressing the attitude that “if you can’t do it, I’ll find someone who can.” In short, they make excuses for their own Continue reading “Three things to get your team to trust you” →

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So, What’s Your Story?

zoom_double_751659The mission of my first assignment in the corner office was to turn the business around. Bleeding cash, lacking sustainable IT and other infrastructure, and having suffered through a bad leadership episode, the company was teetering on the brink of failure. My first impression as CEO of the company (Lifewatch, then called Cardiolife) was that there were some quality people on the management team who lacked a sense of direction. Most odd was that the hallways were plastered with motivational quotes – framed posters of great photographs adorned with lofty phrases about teamwork or exhorting people to “Make It Happen.”

When I asked people about them, they all shrugged and said my predecessor had hung them to motivate the staff. It was clear that their presence was widely viewed as a joke. So, I removed them. A big part of my job was to change the culture. Lofty phrases not Continue reading “So, What’s Your Story?” →

Succeeding Without Losing Your Soul (Part 4)

The following are the author’s remarks at the Financial Leader of the Year (FLY) awards dinner on October 4, 2017, sponsored by the McCracken Institute and Rollins College.  This is Part 4 of 4. 

To read Part 1, click here.

To read Part 2, click here.

To Read Part 3, click here.

But suppose you’re not a Millennial with the inclination to travel to Outer Mongolia to do business directly with goat herders. (I can tell you that’s not on my bucket list.) Suppose you work for a big company. Let’s say a global corporation… like Nestlé.

Nestlé is an $89 Billion food and beverage company. The company’s mission statement is “Good Food, Good Life.” If you’re an espresso drinker, you may be familiar with one of their products: Nespresso. Perhaps you’ve seen a TV ad that features these guys:

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Nespresso follows the old Gillette razor blade business model. Nestle doesn’t exactly give away Nespresso machines like Gillette gave away razors. However, selling coffee in little pods is a very profitable business for them. And, it enjoyed 30% annual growth in its first decade on the market. It’s fair to say that Nespresso expanded the market for premium coffee and, simultaneously created a huge problem for Nestle:

Where would they obtain a reliable source of coffee to feed the demand they had created?

The traditional playbook for procurement managers is to commoditize the supply and Continue reading “Succeeding Without Losing Your Soul (Part 4)” →

Succeeding Without Losing Your Soul (Part 3)

The following are the author’s remarks at the Financial Leader of the Year (FLY) awards dinner on October 4, 2017, sponsored by the McCracken Institute and Rollins College.  This is Part 3 of 4. 

To read Part 1, click here.

To read Part 2, click here. 

At its root, shared value recognizes that the competitiveness of a business relies upon thePPP health of the community surrounding it. Businesses need not only economically healthy customers to buy its goods and services but also a community that is willing and able to provide critical public assets like roads, schools, and police protection. The surrounding community needs businesses to provide jobs and wealth creation opportunities for its citizens.

In Michael Porter’s seminal work on this topic, he outlines three key ways that companies can create shared value Continue reading “Succeeding Without Losing Your Soul (Part 3)” →

Succeeding Without Losing Your Soul (Part 1)

The following are the author’s remarks at the Financial Leader of the Year (FLY) awards dinner on October 4, 2017, sponsored by the McCracken Institute and Rollins College.  This is Part 1 of 4. 

Our prosperity is like oxygen.solarfield

Every moment, we breathe in and we breathe out. We never think about it. We simply take it for granted that each breath will allow us to keep living.

Yet, if we were to be deprived of it – oxygen, that is – oxygen would be all we could think about. We’d be gasping for our next breath.

Our prosperity is like that too. American prosperity, that is. We take it for granted. We expect that our infrastructure will support a healthy lifestyle, that our military and Continue reading “Succeeding Without Losing Your Soul (Part 1)” →

What businesses can do about poverty

First published in Rochester’s daily newspaper, the Democrat & Chronicle, on September 5. Click here.

On the heels of the release of a landmark report on poverty by ACT Rochester and the Rochester Area Community Foundation, I wrote an essay for this paper titled ‘Just Tell Me What to Do About Poverty.’ In it, I expressed my frustration at, yet, another report decrying the depth and breadth of poverty in our community without offering a prescription for what we, as a community, can do about it.

As it turns out, the response to my complaint is right here in our own backyard. The Democrat & Chronicle’s Patti Singer reported last week on four companies that are actively addressing Rochester’s greatest challenge. The companies – TruForm Manufacturing, ENEROC, Genesee Brewery, and Green Visions – are piloting programs to hire and train less fortunate members of our community. Tyrone Reaves, owner of TruForm, has gone an extra step, founding and managing a non-profit to train people on both the job skills and the social skills to succeed in the workplace.

helpSolutions such as these address local challenges in the context of a global economy. The Wall Street Journal story on September’s monthly unemployment report outlined the Continue reading “What businesses can do about poverty” →

Millennials: the next greatest generation

GGcandoitNeil Howe has a theory about generations. The founder and president of LifeCourse Associates has been studying them for most of his adult life. Each era of about 80 years has four generations that repeat themselves cyclically, according to Howe.

Baby-boomers are an ‘Idealist’ generation, much as their great-grandparents, the Missionary Generation, were at the beginning of the last era. They rebelled against Victorian values at the dawn of the industrial revolution. They fought for protections for women and children working in harsh factory conditions and for women’s suffrage. Boomers, for their part, fought for the end of the military draft and for civil rights.

Idealist generations are followed by ‘Reactives’. Generation X mirrors the Silent Generation. They are, by nature, rebellious and cynical.

In Howe’s model, Millennials would follow the same script as The Greatest Generation (as Tom Brokaw dubbed them in his wonderful, eponymous book). They are a ‘Civic’ Continue reading “Millennials: the next greatest generation” →