No One is Indispensable
The success of any business rarely depends on any key manager or executive. It is only the mistaken belief in the indispensability of an executive that masks and suppresses the talent of others. Your leadership bench is often hiding in plain sight.
Adapt the Company to Your Style
The most successful expat CEOs in Japan I know never adapt their leadership style to their company’s culture. They adapt their company’s culture to their leadership style, and there is no reason you cannot do the same in your company in Japan.
Three Success Factors for Robust Strategy
All strategic plans are perfect on paper in a theoretical static world. However, no strategic plan ever survives confrontation with the ever-changing realities of business and your perception of them. A robust strategy is one that can adapt rapidly to change in the environment as well as to change in your understanding of that environment. […]
Cultivating Boldness
The scarcest resource in a business today is not talent, money, or technical ability, but rather independent thought and the courage to act on it.
Entrepreneurial Spirit of the Employed
A CEO client of mine has been asking his senior executives to be more “entrepreneurial” in their approach to the business, and he is certainly not the first one to do so.
Principles Reign Supreme Over Values
A company I know has a stated value of innovation that it parades out in front employees on a regular basis, but rarely, if ever, do any staff or managers innovate anything—including staff in research and development!
Increase Your Attrition
Many companies are struggling to find the qualified people they need, so they resort to retaining the people they have whether qualified or not. They fight to eliminate or at least reduce rates of attrition when it is increased attrition that can do the business the most good. Retention of the best is all that […]
Forget Recruiting. Poach.
Don’t recruit. Poach. In a tight labor market, there is no percentage in tentativeness. If there is any time to go on the offense, it is now. I don’t know why recruiting firms call what they do a “search.” Who cares about a search? A search is easy, and often consists of little more than […]
[:en]Incentive Pay Doesn’t Work[:ja]インセンティブに効果はない[:]
[:en]If I offered you more money for results, would you change anything that you are doing now? I have asked this very question to numerous successful CEOs, and invariably the answer is no. I suspect yours is as well.
[:en]Feedback is Not Always a Gift[:ja]フィードバックは相手のためのものとは限らない[:]
[:en]Unsolicited feedback is meant only for the benefit of the person who gives it and never for the person to whom it is given. I pay it no heed. Neither should you.
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