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Recent Articles from Todd Ordal
The fine line between confidence and hubris
I admit to having an affinity for aw-shucks people. I’ve met combat veterans who aren’t fond of attention and will tell you they were just doing their job-- of getting shot at to protect you and me.
You can't have it all
Whoever said you can have it all either had a small wish list or a small capacity for reason. “You can have it all” has two different sources, greed or fear. Neither is healthy.
The dangers of extreme zoom
I recently met with a prospective client and his team about their organizational challenges. One team member repeatedly talked about a “solution set” he used in a different company.
Mistakes: The good and the bad
There’s a difference between wanting to win and not tolerating failure. Sore losers are usually no fun to be around and often have issues that go back to Mommy and Daddy. Gracious and competitive people want to win, but their self-esteem isn’t tightly wrapped up in it. Wouldn’t it be great if we d...
Is great leadership a requirement?
Let’s not assume that great leaders are necessary for success! Success in business requires a number of ingredients and if you get some of them right, you can make progress. I like to cook and occasionally I produce something that is pretty good, maybe even darn good, just not as good as it could...
Four steps to great org culture
If there’s a term more shrouded in mist than “strategy,” it’s “culture.” I don’t claim to have a lock on business definitions, but I find that if I can make them actionable, they have purpose. If not, they’re like watching the chairman of the Federal Reserve talk to Congress — lots of words with n...
Lessons From Warren
One of the dumbest things I ever did was sell my two shares of Berkshire Hathaway stock many years ago. “Warren Buffett is getting old,” I said to myself, “and he certainly can’t continue this kind of record!” Well, he has!
Cleaning house
Don’t take cultural change lightly; follow a “think-plan-do-do-do” model. This isn’t the area of business to try new things daily. It’s also not something that occurs in a weekend seminar or by getting everyone to walk over hot coals. Like other changes, cultural change is much easier when there’s...
Measuring success
I was on a trip to a prospective client who wanted help crafting strategy and better articulating objectives. The CEO had a great deal of passion for the business, his customers and his employees, but his measures of success were ethereal, more about feel than metrics. If he heard good stories fro...
Courageous vs. heroic leaders
Faster than a speeding bullet! More powerful than a locomotive! Able to leap tall buildings in a single bound! Is it Superman? No, it’s just another heroic CEO. Resembling Jimmy Olsen in his early career, our hero is somehow transformed by his newly refurbished office on mahogany row into a superh...
Top six rules for dealing with uncertainty
“Toddy-boy, you’re just going to have to deal with the ambiguity!” Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinko’s, said that to me after significantly changing our growth targets. I’d just spent weeks working with my team on capital plans, new store locations, staffing plans, etc., for the coming year. I wanted...
Band of Brothers…
Perhaps you saw this miniseries, one of the best things I’ve seen on television, depicting real soldiers in WWII. It dawned on me that the most engaged, committed teams I’ve been part of or worked with had much in common with the Band of Brothers soldiers. I’m not delusional. Nothing we do in busi...
