By the time this is in your inbox, I’ll be on my way to Sault Ste. Marie - the first stop on our expedition to Tuktoyaktuk on the Arctic Ocean. It’s a 14,000-kilometre round trip in my 1968 MGB convertible. And what blows most people’s minds is that Edmonton is only ½ way. And somewhere along the way, the expedition became a bit of a convoy: me,...
Read MoreMost companies say they want proactive people. People who spot problems before they become crises. People who take ownership, seek opportunities, and look for ways to improve things. And people who don’t simply wait to be told what to do before taking appropriate action. And yet, strangely, many of these same organisations unintentionally teach...
Read MoreI was in a strategy session recently with a management team trying to build a forecast. Good business. Smart people. Plenty of data. And completely stuck - not “this is tricky” stuck, but “we’ve been talking in circles for an hour” stuck. They were trying to answer a simple question: What does next year’s revenue look
Read MoreMost of us carry around a quiet mental list of things we feel we should be doing. Not just the obvious things like the strategic planning, the follow-ups, or the long-neglected improvements etc, but also the more behavioural expectations or hopes we he have for ourselves too: being more available, being more disciplined, being more present, being...
Read MoreI was speaking with a business owner a while back who told me he had set up an advisory board. “We got together twice,” he said. “It didn’t really go anywhere.” I asked a few questions: He’s not alone. A lot of advisory boards are built with good intentions but never deliver real value — mostly because they’re never built to deliver value....
Read MoreA while ago, I was catching up with the CEO of a mid-sized business. His business was growing steadily but wrestling with some underlying challenges. As we talked through a few of the issues, I asked whether he had ever considered forming an advisory board. His response was familiar: “Absolutely, it’s something I know I need to do. Just not...
Read MoreI taught skiing on weekends for almost 40 years and one of the most powerful skills I developed was what is called ‘Detection and Correction”. It’s the skill of identifying the symptom and then determining the root cause. Inexperienced instructors can spot the symptom—but rarely identify the root cause. A student may be skiing without flexing...
Read MoreMost CEOs I know don’t want a coach. At least, not in the traditional sense. They didn’t climb the mountain by asking for directions. They got there by figuring things out. By instinct. By guts. By doing. But here’s the thing: at a certain stage, figuring things out alone doesn’t cut it anymore. The stakes are higher, the terrain is unfamiliar,...
Read MoreWith some trepidation you strip down to the basics and attach the required ankle tracker. You have made a foolhardy(?) decision to go ahead with the venture. Physically you are committed. Mentally – not so sure. You shuffle forward to the end of the dock. The man says, “The timer starts when you step on the
Read More“There’s no I in team” is one of those phrases that gets trotted out whenever someone needs to be reminded that it’s not all about them. It’s catchy. It sounds wise. It gets printed on posters, stitched into corporate training slides, and dropped into motivational speeches. I cringe every time I hear it ..... it seems to gloss over the vital...
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