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A Warrior’s Heart

As we approach the 4th of July I can't help but think of our founding fathers and the sacrifices they made when they fought to establish our country's freedom. Those thoughts of respect and admiration in turn led me to think about of our troops overseas currently fighting to protect our way of life and preserve our freedom. The more I began to ponder the heroism of our military (past and present)…

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Talent Management

I receive at least 20 e-mails a week from executives and entrepreneurs asking "How do I recruit top talent?" I've adequately addressed my favorite boomerang question in many previous pieces including three of this blogs most-read posts: "How to Win the War for Talent" "Team Building" and "Who Should do the Hiring". So in today's post, I'm going to take a different approach to deal with the talent…

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Seller Considerations

Let me begin with the disclaimer that there are many different types of exit strategies and many different reasons for exit. That being said, in the text that follows we will only focus on the entrepreneur who sells the business and stays on in an executive capacity for the new entity. Most entrepreneurs are taught to begin identifying their exit planning strategy as early into the lifecycle of a…

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Executive Decisioning

Senior executives who rise to the C-suite do so largely based upon their ability to consistently make sound decisions. However, while it may take years of solid decision making to reach the boardroom it often times only takes one bad decision to fall from the ivory tower. The reality is that in today's competitive business world an executive is only as good as his/her last decision. In today's…

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Brand Acquisitions

Real brands have real value...in fact recent studies confirm what many of us have known for quite some time, which is that brand equity can become one of the largest assets on a companies balance sheet and ultimately lead to increased valuations. While I have written often on the topic of branding in today's post I'm going to look at brands (as opposed to companies) as potential acquisition…

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Say Yes to Corporate Alumni

No company is immune to the perils of employee turnover. But what if I told you that there was a way to recoup some of the investments made into former employees? While I'm sure each of us can easily recall those former employees that we were glad to part company with, it might not be so easy to recall those good employees that got away from us. Even the best of companies will from time-to-time…

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The Value of a Brand

In an earlier post this month entitled "Assessing Brand Value" I provided a fairly in-depth overview of both how to calculate a brand's value as well as describing why it is critically important to focus on creating brand equity. Nothing illustrates the impact of a brand's contribution to the overall health of a company more than an assessment of its financial contribution marked by its…

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How to Create Passion in the Workplace

Creating a passionate workplace is not as simple as one would like to think. I've written often on the important role that passion plays in personal success and fulfillment (see "Passion equals Purpose"). However in today's post I want to offer a bit of a different take on the value of passion...In the text that follows I'll examine the impact of passion as a key success metric for the overall…

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Where Do You Seek Advice?

I believe that most reasonable people will concur with the following statement: The quality of the professionals you choose to surround yourself with will have a direct impact on the level of success that you achieve. So my question is this: Why do so many people surround themselves with mediocre to low-end professionals? I followed an interesting thread the other day which was something of a…

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Push vs. Pull Marketing

It is more important than ever to understand the differences in and relationships between "Push" and "Pull" marketing given continued advances in technology, the corresponding proliferation of mediums, and the ever-shrinking global marketplace. I'll also apologize in advance as I'm using this post as yet another opportunity to rant on the damage caused by those would be subject matter experts who…

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Dazed and Confused…

You can run, but you cannot hide...as a C-level executive you can bob-and-weave, spin with the best of them, delude yourself by inhaling your own smoke or just hide out in the corner office. However, it's only a matter of time until your ruse is uncovered as you will eventually be held accountable for what you know and what you do (or perhaps what you don't know and don't do). I'm always amazed…

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Tragedy and Business

Regrettably, we live in a time where tragedy strikes somewhere in the world on a daily basis. While certainly not to be minimized, most of us have developed the ability to come to grips with the earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods, and other natural disasters that impact our lives as we rightly categorize these events as circumstances beyond anyone's control. When a soldier loses his life…

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Making the Most of Talent

I've written often on the subject of leadership development and talent management because very few things in business can catalyze change and create sustainable growth like leaders who understand how to leverage their talent and resources. It takes more than charisma and subject matter expertise to be a leader, it also takes a keen understanding of how to create organizational leverage. In…

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Research & Benchmarking

I had an overwhelmingly positive response to my post the other day entitled "Identifying Competitive Threats." In fact so much so that today's post is somewhat of a follow-on piece based upon some of the questions that were submitted. As I read the comments and e-mails it became clear to me that while many of you understood that staying abreast of your competition is of critical importance, most…

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Media Gone Mad…

Since this blog frequently addresses the topics of accountability, leadership, media, and CEO practices I thought I'd take this opportunity to use recent events in the media to rant about all of the above. Does anyone remember the days when the media actually took responsibility for the content it chose to air to the public? Many would say the media has always pushed the envelope in terms of…

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Title Proliferation

I have recently been doing quite a bit of work in the European Community and more particularly in the UK. One of the things that I've found interesting is that many of our European brethren are not familiar with the term "C-suite executive". As the yank from the colonies, I've found myself attempting to rationally explain the phenomenon of "Title Proliferation" (which is comprised of "Title…

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