John Fairclough will be judging the Coleman Center’s annual DePaul University New Venture Challenge held February 4th to the 14th. The judges, selected amongst Chicago entrepreneurs, will determine which DePaul student has best met the challenge of an introducing an innovating new venture interest. The New Venture Challenge is open to all DePaul students, regardless […]
Good entrepreneurs tend to be a misunderstood group. They push when others pull. They take chances when others are cautious. They expand while others contract. All the while, their group of friends and family are left scratching their heads trying to figure out if the entrepreneur is crazy or a genius. This current downturn in […]
During difficult economic times, it is important to drive down costs. Although there are many ways to accomplish this, some cost cutting can cause permanent damage to your business. My approach to cost cutting is to turn it into a contest, which I have named “Blood From a Turnip”. Here is an overview. Objective Find […]
Gathering pertinent information to make informed decisions leads to greater likelihood of success. I call this task “Workplace Reconnaissance”. Lets look a common scenario. The leader of a business is in the middle of working on something important for the future of their company. They are interrupted by a team member who throws a fire […]
As business owners and managers, we are often put to the test. We face all sorts of situations with which there is handbook on how to deal with the situation. We need to be able to count on ourselves. Here is the test I give myself before taking action. I imagine my child is watching […]
All businesses are indirectly in the insurance business. I am not referring to the traditional types of insurance, rather I am referring to the management of risk. The people we hire, the technology we put in place, the operational procedures we produce are all a form of insurance we invest in to protect and strengthen […]
All too often people share their two cents when not asked. People tend not to follow advice they receive without solicitation. A more effective method of helping one another is through experience sharing. It is arrogant to assume that you have the answer to someone’s complex problems after briefly hearing about the story. There are […]
Finding a mentor is one of the best things entrepreneurs can do for their business. Too often small businesses do not have a board of directors to keep them accountable. Therefore they do not perform to their potential. Its like the old adage, what gets managed gets done. A mentor relationship can add accountability to […]
There is a certain level of anxiety, nervousness, or uneasiness I feel when someone gives me information. I question the information in my mind. I run it through all kinds of internal tests to see if it makes sense. The first thing I try to do is verify the information. Too often the information is […]
My approach to the financial aspect of business is best summed up by the oxymoron “Aggressive Conservatism”. I aggressively approach the financial well being of the company in a conservative manner. Let me better explain: I pay bills faster than terms. This is not what most people would teach because it has the potential to […]
It starts with you. When you aim to lead your organization and people to greatness, you need to be accountable to the company. There are things that people in leadership roles do that they believe are of little or no consequence that other people on the team see differently. Throughout the years, I have had […]
I have been getting requests to write a post about hiring. Why do we hire? Is it to support our desired lifestyle of more time off or is it to make more money? At the core, it is usually to support one or both of these objectives. Hiring is one of the riskiest things we […]
Company meetings are a great way to get information regarding strategy and goals. Many times they do not happen enough. I like quarterly meetings that are a little bit more formal coupled with regular feedback. In this environment, there are a lot of questions floating around, job losses are sweeping through the country, and most […]
I have run a company for years without a mentor, Advisory Board or Board of Directors, and we plugged along just fine. I had been completely comfortable in my role. The company was growing, I was making the company better and challenged myself to continuously improve what we did. I felt great about this. Then […]
Companies often debate the value in whether to conduct a comprehensive onboarding (orientation) program or initiating new hires as quickly as possible to jump start productivity. Apart from filling out paperwork, handing over a company handbook/benefits sheet, and perhaps issuing a company I.D., many companies do not invest the resources to properly onboard their greatest […]
The benefits of a full-scale onboarding program are immeasurable, but perhaps the most valid argument for comprehensive onboarding is that it communicates to the new hire that the company is genuinely attuned to promoting the individual’s success and career development within the organization. An effective onboarding sets the tone to introduce the company’s purpose […]
If employees from several different departments are being onboarded simultaneously, break out sessions provide more in-depth introduction of specific roles and responsibilities. These break out sessions or Training Modules require structure with set objectives, course materials, and some form of testing and feedback to determine that the objectives have been met. These Training Modules […]
On-boarding programs assist new hires with acclimating to the organization’s culture and position employees on the right path for personal and career success. Once a company has opted for a formal on-boarding program, a detailed plan must be drafted to ensure the program’s seamless execution and overall effectiveness. After essential components have been decided upon […]
How do you re-energize strategic meetings that seems to fall flat, or worse- are too complacent with everyone simply nodding their heads in agreement? Companies that have been successful in building a dynamic team of members in alignment with the organization’s core values and purpose, could eventually run the risk of lack of perspective. When […]
Business leaders, especially CEO’s, are often reluctant to relinquish having a a direct involvement in all tasks for their business. Rather than fall back on micromanagement, the most successful and productive companies are ones where business leaders can allocate the right work to the right people. In order to find the right task for the […]
A business needs to know its purpose, vision, goals, and core values. The purpose helps define the reason for being. The vision is what we aspire to be. The goals are intermediate points that are met during the life of the business. The core values are the boundaries that underline the behavior of people within […]
Here are the first steps to building and clarifying a strategy for your business: Examine the purpose of the business. Why does the company exist? Ask “Why?” multiple times and when you cannot ask it anymore, you are close to your purpose. This is typically the purpose of the founder of the company. This is […]
Here are the first steps to bringing this type of internal communication into your company: Review your discipline and reward processes to see if they are consistent with what the company goals and values. Mention the components of the strategic plan when rewarding or disciplining an action. This reinforces how important they are and work […]
Creating the Leadership Team on the organizational chart is important in building organizational clarity. Here are specific basic disciplines of business: Sales/Marketing HR Operations Technology Finance/Admin Businesses may have some of these broken out separately, or combine others as their business size and needs dictate. These roles are typically filled by people with strong organizational […]
Here are the first steps to bringing this structure into your company: Identify the traits and skill set needed for this role Create the initial project list for this role by identifying opportunities and dangers the company would like to research. Review your current personnel to see if anyone can fill the role. If nobody […]
I believe organizational clarity is necessary for a company to enjoy long term success. Early on, I handled many of the responsibilities of my company, so clarity was not an issue. As my company grew, I found myself frustrated with decisions that were being made, because they did not align with our goals, and this […]
There were a couple of steps we established to hire the right people, once we knew what we wanted. We use this process to help prepare our team for success. Recruitment Establish a scorecard to rate each resume, with the intention of removing 70% of applicants, giving us the ability to spend more time with […]
The path to success includes many pivotal decisions. These decisions shape our future. I want to share my experience and the price I paid with my relationships as I pursued my dreams. In the beginning, I had my friends and family, and they were people I could count on. Life was easy and predictable. My […]
It should be normal that innovative solutions get developed and implemented into a company. We reached a size where this was no longer happening. These solutions were important, but not important enough for the executives of the company to focus on them. We were suffering because of this. It was not acceptable. Because of this, […]
Emerging Business Leaders is a program that we built that brings together young, insightful, talented members of a team to develop their leadership skills. This program serves as a platform for educating members on each discipline of business structure, innovation, improvement initiative development, while developing and acting upon Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats (SWOT) analysis. The […]
It should be normal for people to end their workday knowing how they performed. It gives them the consistent feedback that reinforces the right activity, while giving the supervisor the ability to have objective performance discussions. I am in pursuit of having every position in our company be able to have this daily feedback. We […]
