CEO Roundtable Articles

Book Review: How Customers Buy…& Why They Don’t

Book Review: How Customers Buy…& Why They Don’t

Book written by Martyn R. Lewis (no relation) For those of us who did any selling in the last century, there has been a lot of head-scratching about what happened to the “good old days” when we knew how to convert an opportunity to a prospect to a sale. When you could...

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Active Listening … and Leadership

Active Listening … and Leadership

Our heads are full of thoughts, images, ideas, experiences and emotions and we have a need to share them in order to develop ourselves, our ideas and to achieve just about anything significant. Our species occupies the top spot on the planet because of our unique...

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A Day Off a Week … and Leadership

A Day Off a Week … and Leadership

At a recent CEO Roundtable meeting, Bruce told us about his recent practice of clearing a day… Wednesday was his choice... to book off work each week.  He says that he might do some work on the mission and vision of the business, or he might just go to the library and...

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When Everyone Wants to Be The Leader

When Everyone Wants to Be The Leader

Everyone is trying to act like a leader in the your group.  You may be one of them.  Nothing is getting done and everyone is frustrated.  First, don’t despair. This is the way most teams begin. We are not trained to work in teams by experience and we are not...

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Selling Skills and Business Leadership

Selling Skills and Business Leadership

Can you remember a time in your life when you felt the great satisfaction of being able to help someone solve a problem?  I mean really change their circumstance?  Wasn’t that just the best feeling in the world? What if I could tell you how to do more of that?  Would...

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Pricing for Profit

Pricing for Profit

In order to survive, companies need to create and retain customers while dealing with competition in the marketplace. Advertising, customer service, product strategy are all important elements, but perhaps the most critical factor in a company’s ability to succeed is its pricing strategy. How do we determine the right price for our product or service? Businesses that do this poorly are quickly drained of resources or get left behind by better-prepared competition.

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Are you a hero?

Are you a hero?

You have encountered and practiced, a range of leadership styles in your life and career. In our work transitioning founder-run businesses into professionally managed enterprises, we have found that most leaders can be grouped into two distinct categories that we call “heroic” and “post-heroic”.  Which are you?

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A Short Stack at Denny’s

A Short Stack at Denny’s

I couldn’t sleep again.  Inspiration seems to favor 3am and I have a swarm of profound thoughts buzzing around in my head. I’d better get them written down before I wake up with that vague knowledge that a really deep truth struck me last night.

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Organize or Die (not just a labor union chant)

Organize or Die (not just a labor union chant)

Becoming more organized is the key to success for a CEO, or anyone else in the job of managing. First, understanding that management is a job is important. Many managers see their management role as a bother on the way to getting their work done. It is the work.

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  • The One Minute Manager, Ken Blanchard & Spencer Johnson:

This is a silly little book. It is also an effective little book. By telling a few simple parables, the author Blakeley demonstrates the simplicity of the managers job, but the difficulty of doing it. A young protagonist (presumably the author) interviews a fellow identified only as “The One Minute Manager” and a few of his direct reports. Each sheds a bit of light on their particularly simple system of management, consisting of:

1. 250 word written goals

2. One minute praisings

3. One minute reprimands

The goals are simple enough, and there are some rules about how to administer the praise and reprimand, which emphasize clear expression of joy or disappointment and affirmation in the case of reprimand that the disappointment is in the behavior, or result, and not the individual.

The message for me is that the job of management is different than the jobs being managed, and a job in and of itself. This is a central theme in most books on management, including this one.

CEO Roundtable is made up of private, peer advisory groups of 8 to 12 members from non-competing companies. These peer groups provide a forum for invigorating exchanges of information, ideas, and insights.

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