We sat down with Ed Baker, author of The Symphony of Profound Knowledge, to talk about the motivation behind writing his latest book, including what he says was the most challenging and rewarding part of the process. “This book provides a framework to think differently about organizations, in contrast to what business schools teach,” Ed tells us. “Living is [ Read More ]
The morning of September 17, 2004 started like many other days for businessman and entrepreneur Barry Shore. At 55, Barry had just returned from a trip overseas with his 17-year old son. Barry is the Founder and CEO of Dlyte.com and is a successful serial entrepreneur across a variety of industries. Despite waking up physically strong, by the end [ Read More ]
How do you know when it’s time to add new members to your board? Tony Schroeder, CEO of Choice One Engineering, says it really comes down to how much value a board member is providing you, the business owner. (Tony is also a Business Coach at Aileron.) “When I can predict what the board member is going to say, [ Read More ]
Every business owner has something that’s kept them up at night. For Bernard Dalichau, President of Lavender Home Care Solutions, it was the thought of losing his employees. “I put so much effort into hiring them, and I put so much effort into developing them, the fear of losing people was a huge anxiety point I had,” he says [ Read More ]
“The wisdom of the decision has nothing to do with the power of the position," says Clay Mathile, Founder and Chairman at Aileron and Former CEO and owner of The Iams Company. When you train and empower everyone to make decisions that serve the company’s strategy, that's when innovation and problem-solving can happen regardless of someone's role within the company, says [ Read More ]
“A good plan today is better than a perfect one tomorrow.” – General George Patton Many entrepreneurs start their company wanting to build the perfect product or service for their customer. This is a big mistake and here's why. Perfect can take too long to develop. Most entrepreneurs have a limited amount of development funds before they need to [ Read More ]
“The great thing about a partnership and having a sounding board is you may not have tunnel vision completely go away, but at least your ‘tunnel’ is expanded from a few other points of view,” says Stacy Sheldon, Managing Partner at POMIET, a company that provides customized web and mobile solutions in the healthcare space. “[With multiple owners,] hopefully we're [ Read More ]
Planning and setting direction for the future of your business is integral to professional management. As a result, succession planning and sustainability are a natural part of implementing the DOC model.Even though many business owners/founders produce a forward-looking vision for their company, fears or uncertainties can hold back the process of planning for a successful exit. If you don't figure [ Read More ]
“How can you not invest in people?” asks Mark Thompson, a former Business Coach at Aileron. “It’s your only difference,” he says in this video also featured on Forbes. Ed Eppley, Course for Presidents Facilitator at Aileron, agrees that high-performing companies are those that invest in their people. Ed says that it’s in a business owner’s best interest [ Read More ]
Although commonly used, sports are a weak analogy for thinking and talking about business. Mark Thompson, an Aileron Business Coach, explains why a symphony is a better analogy for how we develop and support people in an organization. It’s More Than High Performers Sports analogies often glamorize motivation coming from a coach or a team leader. But high-performing organizations [ Read More ]
How do you respond when you learn an employee has made a mistake? As a leader, are you more likely to advise her on what she should have done—or, do you take a moment and ask the employee, “What did you learn from that?” Practicing empowering questions—rather than just giving someone a flood of advice, as discussed in this [ Read More ]
In this video, Jim Sever, fifth generation business owner, shares how connecting the company’s core values to every day decision-making improved the bottom line for his $30M machinery moving, rigging, and crane rental company. We sat down with Jay Meyer, President of JMeyer Strategies, to continue exploring the topic of core values. As a former business owner, Jay now [ Read More ]
