What kills growth inside middle-market firms? Join Jack Sweeney, co-host of CFO Thought Leader, as he interviews Robert Sher on details about his newest book Mighty Midsized Companies: How Leaders Overcome 7 Silent Growth Killers.  Rob reveals the seven silent growth killers unique to midsize firms and explores some of the approaches CFOs can use to detect and overcome the organizational shortcomings that routinely prove fatal for growth.

Listen to the entire podcast here.  

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CFOs of growth companies mustn’t limit themselves to finance.  In the absence of a strategic HR leader, they are the most likely partner of the CEO to provide HR leadership, both through strategy and by introducing critical processes.

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Some companies let time slip away from them.  The result is one missed deadline after another.  CEOs must come down hard and enforce deadlines.

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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.

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Robert Sher’s Radio Interview on the “Think Bigger Radio Show” in October 2012, prompted this brief.

Please click here to read the flyer.

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Kelly Scanlon, the President and CEO of Thinking Bigger Business Media, Inc., interviewed Rob for her Smart Companies Thinking Bigger blog talk radio show which ran October 5, 2012.  The topic was “Why You Need Dissatisfied Employees” and focused on creating a high-performance work environment.

Kelly’s goal with her radio show is to provide business owners with strategies, connections and inspiration for reaching the next level. Join Kelly and Robert as they talk about systems you can use to get more from your team. Click here to listen to the broadcast.

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Olympic athletes are NOT satisfied until they win their medal, so they work like crazy before competing. My newest Forbes.com post asserts that dissatisfied employees are essential. Not dissatisfied with their boss, their company or their job, but dissatisfied with the level of progress toward their goals. It lays out five key elements to keeping them in a healthy state of dissatisfaction.

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Increasing performance, reviewing performance, and rewarding performance are tough subjects that must be handled skillfully.  Microsoft’s stack ranking of employees has been a topic of a number of posts recently that isn’t working out too well when it comes to their employees’ innovation.  So how does the middle market company practice these evaluative techniques without alienating their employees or stifling the essential creativity necessary for growth?

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Being a loyal CEO can be deadly. But isn’t loyalty good? Admirable? Yes, but not always. Not when the CEO is loyal to people who aren’t loyal to the company.

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Nearly every successful middle-market company eventually faces a swarm of competition. When their core business contracts, single-product companies can find themselves fighting for their lives. But the companies which plan highly-related diversifications before such downturns grow in good times and bad.

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