Leaders and managers produce decisions more than anything else. So it stands to reason that you want to hone your decision making skills. The best way to do so is to learn from your precious decisions. The problem is that our brains don’t exactly make this easy. For starters, we tend to judge a decision…
Running a business is hard. To understand what’s going on and make effective decisions, you have to be able to wear many different hats, and take into account many different perspectives and types of information. Mental models can help to cut through the clutter and get to the heart of an issue. Mental models are simplified models of…
In one of my very first essays, I wrote that some companies opt out of developing a strategy for a variety of reasons. But it might surprise you to know that there are also companies that think they have a strategy, when all they have is a plan or a set of goals. Big deal,…
Talking to videogame company founders over the last few months, I feel like I’ve stumbled on a common theme. Put simply, these founders have become the victim of their own success. They usually have plenty of customers or clients. Their financials are looking good. Their team might even be growing. And yet… And yet most…
Does this sound familiar? Your company has a handful of issues that seem to impossible to solve. They keep cropping up in meetings, and when they do, an endless discussion ensues on where the issue comes from, who’s responsible, and how to solve it, but no real solution is found. The issue just sort of……
As your company grows, it becomes more and more important to document and structure parts of it. Focussing your efforts and doing things in a predictable, repeatable way makes you more efficient, and more effective. A big part of this is documenting your core processes. Why you should document your core processes Documenting your core…
Continue reading Create clarity by defining your core processes
Have you ever had a week where you look back on Friday, and you just can’t remember what you’ve done all week? Sure, you’ve been busy, but somehow you don’t really have anything to show for it. And how about this: have you ever made plans to tackle a big project over a period of…
So you’ve decided to delegate some of your responsibilities. Great! I’d love to tell you that this is the end of your issues, but that really isn’t the case. HOW you delegate matters at least as much as WHAT you delegate. Let’s look at an example from my own experience: I worked with a manager…
Entrepreneurs often spend their time doing a million and one things that happened to end up on their plate. You’ve done it before, you know how you want it done, and it’s faster than showing someone else how to do it. And yet, just working through whatever’s on your plate doesn’t feel like it’s moving…
Michael Porter is generally considered to be one of the foremost experts on the topic of strategy. In an interview in Joan Magretta’s book Understanding Michael Porter, he touches on the most common strategy mistakes. Here are the five most common mistakes managers make with regards to strategy, according to Porter: 1. Trying to be…
