In this chapter, we’ve identified the elements of style that are common among effective leaders. They are: Authenticity Decisiveness Focus Personal Touch Hard/Soft People Skills Communication Ever Forward

“There are two types of lost trust. The first is losing confidence in someone’s abilities because you discover the person is a well-intentioned incompetent. The second is losing faith in someone’s character. You might be able to help someone who is incompetent to become competent, but if you discover someone deliberately and repeatedly took

The point is a lesson that I wish I better embraced: the sheer value of having fun and enjoying yourself, of loving what you do, of living with the paradoxical assumption that you have decades of life left and that it might come to an end tomorrow.

One of the most effective methods for setting and revisiting strategy is to schedule an off-site strategy meeting once per year. Attendees should include key people from each area of the company. The ideal group size is somewhere between five and ten people. Twenty should be the absolute maximum, although we would strongly encourage you to keep the

Larry Ansin, former CEO of the highly successful Joan Fabrics Corporation of Lowell, Massachusetts, told us about his decision to focus: If you’re diversified into five businesses,26 as we once were, the businesses that only make up 3% of your sales are going to take 20% of your time, energy, and attention. It’s just not worth it. Focus. Do what

I’ve simplified our AAR process down to three key questions: AAR Question 1: What replicable new learning did we gain from what went well? AAR Question 2: What replicable new learning did we gain from what did not go well? AAR Question 3: Drawing upon questions 1 and 2, what changes can we make to our SMaC recipe to systematically improve our

How do you know if you have a truly great business? Warren Buffett has the best answer:25 You don’t have to hold a prayer meeting to raise prices.

Does the person see work as a job or a responsibility? The right people in key seats understand that they don’t have “jobs”; they have responsibilities. They grasp the difference between their task list and their true responsibilities. A great doctor doesn’t merely have the “job” of performing procedures but embraces responsibility for the health

Strategy is simply the basic methodology you intend to apply to attain your company’s current mission. “This is how we will achieve our mission.” That, in a nutshell, is strategy. There’s no mystery to it. It’s not a difficult concept.