CEO Think: Blog
Why Great Products And No Planning Will Carry A Midsized Firm Only So Far (Before It Crashes)
This business grew to $100 million revenues in 12 years without a business plan, without a budget, and without many meetings. Hard to believe, but true. Yet now they are changing their approach because they can feel themselves losing control. READ MORE >
How the CFO Can Become the CEO’s Collaborator in Growth
I was walking through Atlanta airport returning from a client session when a CFO spotted me and told me about how he’d spurred growth in his firm.
How to Improve Your Business by Instituting a Simple 1-On-1 Meeting
I advise all my clients to follow this key success discipline that great managers routinely practice: They schedule a regular weekly 1 on 1 meeting with each of their direct reports.
How To Avoid Being George Zimmered Out Of Your Company
I’ll bet everyone who has dreams of being a CEO has empathy when a founder or CEO gets fired. That’s certainly how I felt when I heard the news of George Zimmer’s dismissal from The Men’s Warehouse.
Lapsed Deadlines: A Silent Growth Killer of Midsized Companies
Some companies let time slip away from them. The result is one missed deadline after another. CEOs must come down hard and enforce deadlines.
Games Gone Haywire: What All Companies Can Learn From the Travails of Zynga
I walk by Zynga’s cool building in San Francisco often on my way to a client I have in SOMA. So it was sad to hear of the layoff of over 500 employees. Such a fast acceleration to a billion plus in revenues, and now the growth curve has reversed. What are the lessons to be learned for other mid-sized company CEOs?
How Impossible Dreams Can Destroy Value in Mid-Sized Firms
Most mid-sized business cannot be an amazing growth story. While the media loves crazy-fast growing companies, trying to make a company grow faster than it should often destroys value.
CFO & CEO: How to Avoid Organizational Mood Swings
CEOs and CFOs must deliver a carefully crafted duet when they communicate to the team, balancing optimistic messages and cautionary ones.
Why IBM CEO’s Public Spanking of the Sales Function Was the Right Move
Too many CEOs try so hard to avoid the old-style command and control, “Donald Trump” style of management that they just aren’t tough enough on poor performance. Last week IBM’s CEO publicly criticized her sales function, and I think she was right to do it.
Why the Time to Check Your Strategy Is When It’s Working
Any company that has weathered the recession of 2008-2009 well should congratulate itself for exemplary performance amidst truly trying times. And with the stock market at new heights and the broader economy on the upswing, the leaders of many high-flying companies could not be blamed for feeling that now is the time to double down on their strategy. Yet ironically this could sow the seeds of trouble.
Robert Sher is founding principal of CEO to CEO, a consulting firm of former chief executives that improves the leadership infrastructure of midsized companies seeking to accelerate their performance. He was chief executive of Bentley Publishing Group from 1984 to 2006 and steered the firm to become a leading player in its industry (decorative art publishing).