The CEO’s Role

Being a CEO is first, middle, and last about leadership. Leadership is not primarily about control or power (although you’ll have both, and you’ll have to make the best decisions you can about how to use each at different times). True leadership is the ability … Read more

Reinforcing Your Intentional Culture

Once you’ve identified your culture (hopefully with three words that are easy to communicate), you need to reinforce it on a regular basis. You can use your three words to go back and fine tune the final version of your mission, vision, and values statements. … Read more

What Do You Want Your Culture to Be?

Patrick Lencioni, author of several books on culture and teams, describes a fictional company in his book The Four Obsessions of an Extraordinary Executive: A Leadership Fable. In this company, the owners have described their culture in three words: “Hungry, humble, and smart.” They decided … Read more

Intentional Culture

Why does culture matter? Whether it’s intentional or not, every company has a culture. You can walk through the door and feel it almost the instant you step in. What does the lobby look like? What’s on the walls? Is it warm or cool? Clean … Read more

Values in Action

We had a perfect example of values in action last week when a lone Senator stood up for his values. In this day and age of hyper-partisanship, it’s very hard to hear over the din, but Senator Mitt Romney made an impassioned speech to a … Read more

Deals Only Work When Values Align

Right before the holidays began, Warren Buffet explained one of his deeply held business rules. He only does deals and works with those he likes. Period. This is true values alignment and without it, things usually take a bad turn quickly. As he says, he … Read more

Good Leaders Are Loyal

David Brooks of the New York Times wrote a great piece about loyalty comparing two philosophers, William James, and Josiah Royce. You may not have heard of Josiah Royce? He believed that to have a functioning society, we need unity, not division, and above all, … Read more