Free Newsletter
Peyton Manning’s little-known success trait
One of Peyton Manning’s great strengths is that he is very coachable. Why does Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks to ever play football, need a coach? Because like all professional and college athletes as well as entrepreneurs, executives and salespeople, coaching makes him better. A coach’...
Thirty lessons from 30 years in business
In 1984, the Supreme Court ruled that taping television shows at home on VCRs does not violate copyright law, Ma Bell broke up, the USSR boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, and Detroit took home its most recent World Series win. Another 1984 monumental moment was, for us, opening the fir...
Grow leaders — not bosses
Many would argue that in large part our visionary leaders have gone missing, leaving us with bosses and bottom line managers at the helm of our organizations. If it’s true that great leaders are not born but made, how do we go about making them to fill this gap? Warren Bennis, eminent scholar, aut...
Best of CoBiz: Grow your own talent
So let’s say there is a skills gap in your company. If budgets allow, your first inclination might be to hire someone from outside the company to close that gap. After all, there are some people who know how to look great on paper, and a stunning resume can make any company leader salivate over th...
Hiring a veteran could be a great business decision
With the nation in recovery, investment in resources is growing. We see new commercial construction underway, roads and highways under repair, and consumer spending on the uptick. With all this new growth, companies are starting to loosen the stronghold on hiring freezes initiated when our economy...
Beyond the entrepreneur: Building business intelligence
Large, successful organizations can be great educational environments for the advancing leader to build business intelligence, particularly if there’s a formal program for leadership development. However, they can also be a dark alley, forcing people to stay between the lines and become a function...
Chef Laura: A baker’s dozen
Calm, cool and collected perfectly describe Chef Alex Figura, 30, Executive Chef of Lower48 Kitchen. This mod yet unpretentious restaurant hit the ballpark neighborhood eight months ago and has been delighting its customers ever since with an innovative and constantly evolving menu. Having worked...
Succession planning for Boomer business owners
This is the year the last of the Baby Boomer generation turns 50, and in the coming years we’ll see more and more Boomers retire and sell off their businesses. In fact, from the end of 2012 through 2013, Boomer retirement was the number one reason why businesses were sold in the U.S. According to...
Organizing your team for high performance
Most organizations reorganize fairly frequently, trying to find the optimal structure, only to reorganize again a few years later. It’s a major source of frustration. But the formal structure is not the most important element of how to organize. High-performance organizations often employ temporar...
The rate of change balance
If you sell beer like a good friend of mine, you recognize that you need a good menu of craft beers to supplement the Budweiser or Coors. If you sell books like a favorite client of mine, you may wonder and plan for how to sell your content in the new world order (if you haven’t already turned the...
Flip problems into possibilities
Our goal here is simple: How fast can we return to solution-based thinking that benefits the good of all concerned, including our company’s overall well-being, internal and external? When we face a perceived problem understand that behind the mental curtain, we feel threatened which often times le...
Chef Laura: Punctuality through pastries
It was my first time managing teen-agers who had never had a job before, let alone a job in food service. Their naiveté combined with their Gen Y mentality showed in their lackadaisical work ethic. My biggest challenge was getting these newbies to understand the importance of punctuality. Initiall...
