Posts Tagged With ‘ Entrepreneurship ’

Your relationship to food and exercise is an often-forgotten part of running a small business and this has massive implications for your weight The scales never lie I’ve never been a skinny person. As a kid, I was what would politely be called “cuddly”. At my peak I must have weighed close to 120kg and had a 46 inch waist — largely because I always had an unhealthy relationship with chocolate and sweets — if you don’t believe me, check this out. This changed when I headed for a year living in a village in Nepal at the age of 17 (it’s amazing what living at 3000m altitude,... Continue Reading

<img width="650" height="650" src="https://babyboomer.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/17819872_m-650×650-1.jpg" class="attachment-medium size-medium wp-post-image" alt="Boundary" style="margin-bottom: 10px" data-attachment-id="4671" data-permalink="https://dougthorpe.com/boundarylessness-what-is-it/17819872-sunset-china-great-wall-sunshine/" data-orig-file="https://babyboomer.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/17819872_m.jpg" data-orig-size="692,692" data-comments-opened="1" data-image-meta="{"aperture":"0","credit":"","camera":"","caption":"17819872... Continue Reading

As businesses across the globe begin to ponder their choices for reopening in a post-COVID-19 world, people will be faced with choices. While governmental restrictions dictate some of those choices, it appears all other choices will be left up to the owner/manager. Are you ready to take a chance? The choices will involve taking chances. How are you set for taking a chance? Here are just a few of the situations I am seeing among the businesses I serve.  Continue Reading

How to get teams to gel quickly — harsh lessons from holidays with loose connections that holds the answer If only there was more love in teams and that everyone was more nice “There are 8 of us all nominally at the same level and we’re all senior but it is a total car crash. Nobody trusts each other and it’s led to so much sucking up to the boss, backstabbing, re-work and absolutely no decisions being made.” This is what a friend told me when I caught up with her for a long overdue lunch recently about her newish role in a prolific UK company. “As an expert in people dynamics,... Continue Reading

In today’s complex business world, change is hard. Companies venturing through major culture shifts, mergers or other forms of change often struggle to make it to the end. The idea that people hate change is a phenomenon that is taught, coached and wrestled with in many ways, shapes, and forms. Regardless of your mindset about CHANGE, there is one vital aspect you should explore. PROGRESS is what you should be focused on. Change for the sake of change is meaningless. However, progress toward a new goal or achievement is more vital and more valuable to your organization. Dean Lindsay, America’s... Continue Reading

There’s an old saying in the sales world. “The confused mind says NO.” Clearly that has big implications when trying to sell a product or service. A prospect who gets confused by your sales pitch will revert to a NO answer all the time. On the other hand, a clear, concise explanation of the thing you are trying to sell will help close the deal. The same is true of leadership responsibility. A confused mind says NO. If you confuse the people around you, the overall performance will be greatly reduced or even eliminated. An employee’s willingness to perform is centered on their ability... Continue Reading

Company culture. It’s a buzzword thrown around in boardrooms and plastered across job postings. But what exactly is it, and how do you achieve it? There seems to be a common misconception: culture is something you build, a foundation laid from scratch. But a thriving company culture is more akin to a garden – something nurtured and encouraged to grow organically. This post dives into the difference between building and growing a company culture, exploring the benefits of the latter and offering tips for cultivating a positive and thriving work environment. Building vs. Growing: A Tale of Two... Continue Reading

Me looking wistful just after I receive a response about an outstanding proposal I love running a start-up; it ticks so many boxes for me such as: the massive improvements to my quality of life, the levels of variety it affords me, the uplift in my independence, the healthy challenge to build something from nothing, the impact my company has on others and more. However, it has lots of downsides: loneliness in the early days, the amount I am stretched day-to-day, the constant challenge of cashflow and never being certain where the money will come from, the decision overload that goes with having... Continue Reading

Many years ago, a business coach and mentor I knew named Gerry Fusco introduced me to a phrase he invented. Return on invested time (ROIT). As business owners and leaders, we know about ROI, ROE, EBITDA, SDE, etc. But have you ever spent any waking hours measuring ROIT? We make plans, build budgets, measure KPIs, and do many other quantitative things to assess business performance yet we seldom ask about the time we spend and the return on THAT! However, time is the one thing that can be the most valuable commodity you manage. Or does time manage you? There are so many related questions to ask... Continue Reading

We often imagine leadership as a grand production. Spotlight moments, heroic decisions, and sweeping pronouncements come to mind. But what if the key to building a truly impactful reputation isn’t found in these blockbuster scenes? What if it lies in the quiet, seemingly insignificant interactions that fill our daily lives? The truth is, leadership isn’t a one-time performance; it’s an ongoing narrative woven from countless threads. Each conversation, each decision, each gesture contributes to the tapestry of how you’re perceived by those around you. These small moments, not the big events,... Continue Reading