Category Archives: Uncategorized

Manage to Lead Immersion Program: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World

The Manage to Lead Immersion Program: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World from IntelliVen-U is available to executive leadership teams for the first time ever this summer.

Program Flyer

The program was originally developed for masters students at American University and subsequently also offered at the University of San Francisco and Golden Gate University. Executives have been able to engage in program content through a series of workshops but, up to now, have had no way to experience the entire program all at once. Continue reading Manage to Lead Immersion Program: Seven Truths to Help You Change the World

Plan to Perform and Grow

Leadership teams that are on track to reach their potential to perform and grow have:

  • A written, board-approved financial plan that shows revenue, direct costs, gross margin, indirect costs by function (e.g., marketing, sales, HR, R&D, etc.), and operating profit (i.e., EBITDA),  by month and quarter for the year. Approved financial plans tend to have the following characteristics:
    • Smooth (or otherwise rational) ramp-up (or down) of revenue and costs from the prior year closing month and quarter.
    • Generally upward-trending scale (i.e., ever bigger and better).
    • A 75% chance of being achieved by the in-place team with roughly 2/3 of planned revenue either booked or highly-probable (B&HP) and a highly-qualified pipeline of prospective, current year, revenue equal to three times the gap between B&HP and Plan (and not all in the last quarter or two!).
    • Identified upside-downside potential with mitigation strategies on the downside and what will be done to take full advantage of any upside.
    • Assumptions and triggers that explain what has to happen for planned results to occur and for planned expenses to be made.

Continue reading Plan to Perform and Grow

Leader Exit

At an as yet unspecified time in the near future, the revered leader of a high-functioning team must exit, due to age, health, opportunity, or some other compelling reason.

The way the team sees it, the exiting leader must bring in a new leader or anoint someone from within, though no team member is clearly the one to take the reins in the eyes of the others. The team is anxious and wants to know what steps will be taken when to secure a new leader. Continue reading Leader Exit

At Your Service

Service business ideas are a dime-a-dozen. The question is: Which ones will be successful?” One way to find out is to implement the idea. Another is to do the math before taking even the first step.

Watch this comic scene from Opportunity Knocks in which a businessman uses careful logic as he stumbles into a business venture.

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Click to see a short motivational scene from Opportunity Knocks.

Your service may not be what you think.

Consider, for example, how much would someone be willing to pay to listen to Beethoven’s Ninth symphony? Would it be:

  • $1 for an MP3 on iTunes?
  • $20 for the CD?
  • $200 to hear the NY Philharmonic live?

Continue reading At Your Service