Cut Costs or Invest in Growth?

The Wall St. Journal reports today on growing tension at venture-backed companies over whether to save money to reduce risk or invest to take advantage of new opportunities. You can never gain enough perspective on this issue, which represents one of the most pervasive struggles faced by growing businesses, and…

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PowerPoint? No. Complete sentences? Yes!

learn-leadThe New York Times feature, The Corner Office, generally provides practical advice from CEO’s. This week’s interview with Richard Anderson, CEO of Delta Air Lines, stresses the value of communication and his belief … correctly, I would say … that communication skills are more important than ever with the advent of the Internet and the myriad ways that communication takes place with our professional constituents. Not a PowerPoint slide deck either. Complete sentences.
He also offers his insights about recruiting and interviewing techniques (more…)

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Changing the Bonus Structure?

cost-savings, dollars, moneyThe New York Times reported recently that some companies, like Xerox, are changing the bonus structure to eliminate revenue growth as one of the criteria.
While the point is that growth is not the only important criteria … and some companies are attempting to substitute cash flow as a criterion … the value of the revenue measure is also that it is the easiest to measure and the least susceptible to manipulation. How many stories have we all heard (more…)

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March 2009 Newsletter

Get More At Bats!

A good hitter knows he has to get more hits to be great. A great hitter knows she has to get more at bats to get to the Hall of Fame.
In the midst of a relentless focus on cost reduction, many executives have lost sight of an equally important part of the survival equation – revenue enhancement, a fancy term for “get more sales”. What better way to create a laser focus on that objective than to “get more at bats”? (more…)

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