Category Archives: Leadership

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3 Simple Rules for Great Companies

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I splurged the other day and bought the April 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review. At over almost $17 it is not your typical checkout counter purchase. It puts a real dent in your wallet. However, you can also gain immeasurable insights into business and how to do it better. That was the promise I read between the lines in the cover story teaser – “The Three Rules for Success”. Want to know more? Read on.

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The article is a look behind the data of companies that traded on the various US exchanges between 1966 and 2010, a number that amounted to over 25,000 firms. What the authors, Michael E. Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed, wanted to get at was to understand what truly great long-term successful companies had in common versus the flash in the pan, the flavour of the moment.

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Platform Conference Recap: 7/10 – Carrie Wilkerson

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Our seventh speaker in the Platform Conference recap series is Carrie Wilkerson, better known as the Barefoot Executive. Carrie was the perfect antidote to the post lunch slump. Energetic does not begin to describe her. She spoke to us on Filling Your Stadium: Building More Fans, Friends, & Followers. Who knew the Wonderful Wizard of Oz would figure so prominently into this presentation? Join me after this awesome Lego representation of

Follow the Yellow Brick RoadCarrie described herself as almost an accidental success story. Leaving the corporate world to be a stay at home mom to two toddlers she had adopted she found that her priorities changed as did her workplace. Since then she’s has built several businesses as well as being a coach to others.  Along the way she described overcoming extreme debt, losing 110 pounds and having two more children.  Her big leap into ‘brand name’ recognition followed the publication of her book, “The Barefoot Executive’. Much of the advice she gives in the book comes from her own experience, but she had to be talked into writing the book as she initially felt that she was not qualified to write it. She already had a large following but was conflicted in her mind on how best to proceed.  She knew that in defining her niche she was inevitably going to lose some of those followers.

Therein lies a key learning. Don’t be afraid to NICHE DOWN. Continued focus on a clearly defined niche will alienate some of your tribe that is looking for broader content. However, it will multiply the followers who are looking for targeted content in the niche.  Content without the fluff. These are the followers that really care about the message and are the raving fans we all seek.

photo by: pasukaru76
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Icarus – Lessons From An Ancient Myth

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Seth Godin’s new book ‘The Icarus Deception: How High Will You Fly?‘ has garnered a great deal of publicity lately, and rightfully so. It’s a good book by an impressive and visionary author. Quite aside from the content (which is great) the story of how the book came to be is a story in itself. Seth wanted to change the publishing paradigm that places enormous risk on the author and publisher by funding books before fully understanding the ultimate demand for them. He used the traditional publisher, but did so after he used Kickstarter to test the market among his followers (his tribe) and activate his fans long before the book was published rather than at the time of publishing as is traditionally done. It was a huge success. The goals of his Kickstarter project were met within a few hours and within days over $250,000 was committed. By launching the book as a Kickstarter project he was able to prove its viability. That is how the book came to be. What is the book about? Creating art. I want to talk about the art in this painting and what it tells us about life and the art we can create if we look around.

Pieter Bruegel the Elder - Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

This painting, attributed to Pieter Bruegel the Elder (although now thought to be a copy of an earlier work of his), has held my interest since I first studied it in college, I think in the typical undergraduate elective called ‘Appreciation of Art: 101’. At first glance you cannot tell that a man is drowning in the foreground. There… look by the boat. That’s Icarus, and as we know from the account by Ovid in Metamorphoses, he flew too close to the sun and fell from the sky, drowning after the wax holding his feathers melted.

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Does Your World Smell Good?

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Does the world smell good?  I’ll tell you, I had never considered the question so it’s ok for you say… ‘huh’?  This question comes from a conversation I had over dinner with my godson and it really did make sense after I listened to him. I have smiled inside ever since I heard him explain that the world smells good. Stay with me on this one.

Scrunching up my nose

I learned over dinner that in Joseph’s mind everything in the world smells good. At least, everything in the world should smell good. He explained his logic to me.  “Trees smell good,” Uncle David. “So does candy. And baguettes.”  Not bread mind you… baguettes. That one made me laugh.

I asked him what happens when there is a bad smell that encroaches on his nice smelling world.  I figured that question would leave him stumped. Wrong. He told me that bad smells make him want to scrunch up his nose and stop the smell. Sounds logical, right?

photo by: superhua
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What Does It Mean To Be A Leader?

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Now, before you think that this blog post will be a self-absorbed piece on leaders and leadership let me first change the context of this question with the addition of just one word.  Dad.  What does it mean to be a leader, dad? That was the question my son Ryan threw out to me the other morning on the drive to school after I casually asked what he would like me to write a post on. I must admit it has had me stumped. Why?

The Thinker...

I am the last to toot my horn about my leadership ability. I do what I do for my businesses and civic involvement. Over the years some amount of success brands you as a ‘leader’. But are you really a leader? Am I? I honestly did not know what to write as an answer to this seemingly innocuous question posed by my son. One thing I knew for certain, though, is that he did not want a recital of the standard dictionary definition such as “a person who rules, guides, or inspires others; head“, as seen in the Collins English Dictionary.

The way I wanted to answer my son came to me as I listened to an interview with Spotify founder Daniel Ek. I thought his comments got to the heart of what it meant to be ‘a leader’, and more to the point, an ‘entrepreneurial leader’. In his interview Daniel said “when you look at the world there are so many great things out there, but there are also so many things that you can do a tad better”. Hearing that I had my ‘ah-ha’ moment. Working in the real definition I came up with the answer to the question.

photo by: law_keven