Bite Sized Business Tips

2 minute reads for the values-led business leader

Snippets for purpose and values-led business leaders about meeting our responsibilities to our team, customers, owners, communities and suppliers. Context is everything, so these aren't dogma - rather a stimulus for thought. Subscribe below.

A CEO’s fundamental duty is to create an environment for their team to flourish

One of the core responsibilities of a leader, if not \*the\* core responsibility, is to create a work environment where those who want to grow, and are prepared to commit to it, are able to do so. It doesn't necessarily need a vast L&D budget (though some is always helpful!) ...
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Have you ever smelled the Sistene Chapel?

There's this scene in the wonderful film, The Two Popes, when outgoing pope Benedict asks incoming Pope Francis to take his confession. His primary sin was living in his books and not with the humans that his church is supposed to serve. I read a lot. I think it's important, ...
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Generating activity makes problems harder

"Generating activity is not a problem; in fact it is easy. The fact that it is easy makes the real problem harder to solve. The problem is getting the right things done – the things that matter, the things that will have an impact, the things a company is trying ...
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Ask not what purpose can do for your profit

With a nod towards JFK... Ask not what purpose can do for your profits, but what your profits can do to serve your purpose. There's a lot of talk about how purpose makes your company more profitable. With all due respect, that's a pile of horseploppy. Purpose can enhance your ...
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Build Back Better means Build Back Kinder

Build back better means build back kinder. With a special responsibility if you lead a company. With talk of a K-shaped recovery, where fortunes ascend for some while they plummet for others, it's up to all on the ascendant leg of the K to look out for those on the ...
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Tactics come easy once principles are in the blood.

"Tactics come easy once principles are in the blood" I love that quote from Josh Waitzkin's 'The Art of Learning'. He was applying it to how we display mastery as we learn, and I alluded to this previously when discussing how leaders who are at ease with their leadership and ...
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Greyness is the challenge of leadership

One of the most consistent challenges leaders grapple with as they grow (which is always!) is ambiguity. The continual search for certainty, to define things in a way that is black and white. Whether it's creating organisational structures, or dealing with performance issues, or promotions, or creating comp plans - ...
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Should I scale or should I grow?

Business has an obsession with growth. And usually unlimited growth. A target is set, and we always laud people for beating it. Sometimes with an accelerator for beating it significantly. But although growth is seductive, without scale, it ends up destructive. That's because the growth that we tend to focus ...
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To scale up, your team needs to think like mini-CEOs

A really common refrain I hear from company owners is that no one else on their leadership team thinks like an owner. I have on occasion heard from owner CEOs that they're frustrated that even other *owners* aren't thinking like owners. Scaling effectively needs more than the right processes. It ...
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Work is just a part of life

So here’s the thing. We all play at these different roles we have. We get a job, and we play "professional". We found a company, and we play "CEO". We assume some self importance, some aura of authority, and feed an ego at some level with our level of importance ...
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The question is not “what will new normal look like?”

We will get to a normal. What it looks like, how new or not it will be is open to debate. But in times like these, I always like to remember that volatility disrupts as much as it presents opportunity. I was asked for the umpteenth time on a podcast ...
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Goodbye Friedman, Hello 2021

2021 will be a turning point for business. The rising swell we've seen for businesses to strengthen their social purpose, to build on values will become more mainstream. And if you lead a company, it will be a genuine choice you face. Which side of business history do you want ...
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