Davy Crockett, the ‘coonskin wearin’ Tennessee frontiersman, congressman, and volunteer Texas independence fighter who died at the Alamo, famously advised, “Be Sure You’re Right, Then Go Ahead.” At the risk of hubris, I’ll question the king of the wild frontier who killed him a “bar” when he was only three…

The goal of company executives “generally will be to make as much money as possible”. Or so argues one of the most influential economists of the 20th century. Unfortunately, Milton Friedman’s argument provides a useless framework for building long enduring companies. Aiming for business profit is like telling a hunter…

Are you repulsed by “sales”? Do you experience heartburn at the thought of an upcoming “negotiation”? No one enjoys interacting with a hard bargainer, but sales and negotiation are fundamental business success elements. Unfortunately, concerning negotiation, too often the naïve are made fools and the jaded miss opportunity. The goal…

Colorful post-it notes, sharpie markers, kindergarten stick figure drawings everywhere. Your first thought as you walk into a design thinking workshop might be, “have I accidentally stumbled into a preschool Montessori classroom?” Mine was. There is a method to the madness. Are you keen to think, collaborate and problem solve…

A nine question test to decide if your next team should be agile or waterfall Well-meaning consulting firms pitch clients using PowerPoints rammed full of buzzwords and transformational ideas. One frequent suspect is Agile project management. But what does Agile really mean for your business? Re-imagined IT functions are happily…

A case study in business strategy and two sided networks On Dec 10, 2020, mere months after a pandemic rocked the global travel industry, Airbnb grabbed headlines with a smashing public stock offering(IPO). The market price of airbnb at the end of opening day; over 100 billion dollars. That company market value represented over three times the market capitalization of…

Over the Holidays I fondly remember visiting my uncle. This of course was primarily because he boasted an extensive movie library. Growing up in the time of VHS, his movies were of a curious sort. They were in the small little mysterious “Betamax” format. My cousins and I loved raiding…

My favorite part of summer is the BBQ. The friends, the cold drinks, the sun, and of course the juicy burgers. I can taste them now, the tangy tomato, the crunchy lettuce, the bun. There is no better way to ruin someone’s BBQ than roll up on the back porch…

It was my last semester of college, I could not wait to graduate, and I was graduating into the worst economic recession in a generation. One final intimidating class loomed large. Somehow I had managed to skip [here dear reader you should assume this means craftily avoided and generally procrastinated…