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You’d like to think that values-based decisions are easy.
In some ways they might be, I suppose, but they can also be incredibly difficult. Especially when you run up against the norms of society or your industry.
One of my personal management philosophies has been to be supportive of the time it takes for people to learn something new. This got me into trouble when I refused to fire a problematic employee that others were impatient with.
Read the rest of this entry »Nothing seems to be clearly black and white anymore. Everything mushes into a vague shade of gray.
It doesn’t have to be that way, though. You can make things more clear – especially for the team you work with.
It’s about building on what IS clear.
Read the rest of this entry »We’re all experiencing some of the greatest uncertainty of our lifetimes. It’s a time when nobody on the planet seems to have any answers.
What do you do in this environment? How do you keep your business alive?
The first principle is to ask for help. We are fortunate to have so many excellent resources in our state government and SBDCs. These people are doing the best they can to be helpful.
There are many times in business where it feels like you don’t know where you’re going. Employee issues. Customers giving you grief.
It just feels like the formula isn’t working anymore.
So what do you do when it feels like a need for change somehow?
Read the rest of this entry »Amazon.com is now over half a million people. For such an incredibly automated service, this is an astounding number of employees.
But you’d be hard pressed to find ANY business where its success doesn’t lie in the hands of its people.
So how do they manage this?
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RECENTLY I’VE BEEN THINKING about some of the principles that ground my life and my business. With some thought, I’ve been able to articulate one that’s pretty fundamental and serves me well.
I’m not the smartest guy around, but I get by. The reason is that I figure most anything can be learned given some focus.
I see that many people seem to really struggle when they run into barriers. I get that. When you’re standing right next to an obstacle, it looks really big. Even insurmountable.
THE WORLD SEEMS like it’s sliding all over the place. Things we assumed were solid and unchanging are being constantly questioned.
Even my kids have noticed.
The honest truth, though, is that your business foundation is as solid as you want it to be.
RECENTLY WE FOUND OUT that Volkswagen has been taking illegal steps to evade emissions regulations on their diesel vehicles.
That’s been publicized broadly, so I don’t need to talk about what they did. Instead, I’d like to point out some cautions about WHY they did it.
Because it’s something which can affect each of us in our businesses.
The Values-Based Business 