Last month, I talked about the critical skills needed for an effective C-Suite. In addition to a broad cross section of domain expertise and well rounded individuals, I believe every executive needs to bring Seven Critical Business Skills to the …
I believe there are three things every C-Suite executive needs and these hold true whether one is operating in a very small or very large company. While the bar is much higher at the top of Fortune 500 organizations than …
Business is based upon facts. Or at least it should be. Anecdotal evidence is fine in order to add some color commentary and improve the depth of understanding but it is no substitute for dealing with the cold hard facts. …
I was in a meeting last year as the new/acitng/interim/fractional CFO for a company. Truthfully, I am not sure how best to describe the role. Major investors had asked me to step in and basically informed management that I was …
People frequently ask me “How’s the economy?” They do this because I work with multiple companies and have insights into their performance against plan and the prior year. But the truth is that I don’t spend many cycles thinking about …
There is no surer symptom of an unhealthy business than one that is forced to juggle cash. Quite simply, this means they are running so tight on cash every day that they are making conscious decisions as to who does …
At one of my clients a number of items that we have been trying to simplify for some time have recently come together. The difference on the administrative side is amazing. We operate with very light staff levels yet we …
What’s your deadline? That’s a question that comes up a lot and people may or may not give much thought to the answer. My wife asked me that question about a project that I was working on recently and it …
About a month ago I read an article about a company that sought protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy laws for a “clerical error”. As they say: “You just can’t make this stuff up.” The headline actually blamed it on tax …
Believe it or not, your banker wants to lend you money and wants to see your business grow. That’s how they earn their money. They borrow from depositors and pay them a rate of interest and lend to businesses at …
