Leadership Mojo

Can You "Teach" How to Grow A Company?

The three obvious answers are yes, no, and maybe. I'll start with an easy yes. You see, as adjunct faculty, that's what I do. Yesterday, I finished "teaching" a three-hour course in the entrepreneurship program of the Cox School of Business at SMU. The course's title was Leading a Growing Company; so literally, I just "taught" how to grow a company. The course book said I did, you see.

Whether or not the students learned anything of value, you'd have to ask them. Or, we can check in with them in about 20 years to see where things stand. Achieving the goal is another story entirely where the jury might be out for decades. I will say, in my defence , that even if they didn't learn how to grow a company, they certainly were exposed to a wide variety of people who have been there and done it successfully. For example,

What Can You Do to Build a Fully Sighted Organization?

    A fully sighted company anticipates and "sees" the obvious and the not-so-obvious events, dynamics, and influences that are critical to success versus ignoring it. According to author Margaret Heffernan who wrote Willfull Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at Our Peril says such blindness happens when there are things we should know, could know, but somehow manage not to know.

    Heffernan, who was born in Texas, but grew up in the Netherlands spoke at a Vancouver conference recently. I was deeply impressed with her work, which reminds me a great deal of the themes I also find relevant - such as how to avoid drinking the  Kool-Aid of group thinking.

    One of Heffernan's pet peeves is multi-tasking. Getting to the point, the brain doesn't do it, as I

Secretariat + Social Network: Wondering What's Real

Last week, I watched two films based on "true" stories about two extraordinary historical events (where opportunities for leadership abound). One is about a horse and a woman. One is about a young male and his brain. One story is finished. The other is just beginning. Of course, I'm talking about Secretariat and Social Network.

And What's Your Job? "Chocolatier," She Said.

Sexy, hip, Katrina and Noel Merrem are a husband and wife duo living their entrepreneurial dream. The founders of the decadently deep, hand crafted NOKA Chocolate rightfully so are designated "Chocolatiers, " even though the two of them once labored in traditionally ho-hum jobs. Now they attend glittering parties, have stores in Neiman Marcus and Tokyo, and spend their days testing only the best estate chocolates.  After I wrote the recent blog post on the fun evening tasting wines and chocolates at their Dallas factory, the Merrems sent me this foto of Maximillian Reidel, the Austrian owner and pitchman for Reidel crystal.  For an even better take on Max, the Aug. 18 blog post has a link to him on the Martha Steward show.