How thin is your personal margin? Many of us complain about it, but few of us make a serious effort to improve it. For any professional, personal margin is space, energy, and priorities. It is work life balance. Adequate personal margin can lead to gains in both creativity and productivity.
Although thousands of books and blogs
I heard a wonderful talk by Malcolm Gladwell, who is the author of a number of groundbreaking books including The Tipping Point and Blink. In his talk, he made a distinction between solving a mystery and solving a puzzle. With a mystery, there is information that hasn’t been discovered yet. Before the mystery
To the analytic, what’s more basic to starting a business than having a strong formula for return on investment? They wouldn’t start a business in the first place unless they had solid business models, well thought out risk mitigation strategies, and detailed financial projections for future profit.
As it happens, not everyone who starts
In any business, but especially small business, lost revenue, lost profits, and lost opportunities can have a devastating effect. I use the phrase Profit Leakage to encompass all three.
Most people go into business to make money, right? Not necessarily. Many of my clients are mission driven. That is, they are motivated more by
When I started my consulting practice nearly thirteen years ago, I saw my fellow business consultants through two lenses. One was somewhat favorable: I viewed them as mentors to help me learn how to facilitate, teach, and act professionally. The second lens was darker and less favorable: I saw them as competitors.
There
Recently, as one of the moderators of a weekly luncheon networking group, I had the joy of facilitating a spirited discussion regarding employee retention. What transpired was a wonderful exchange of thoughts and ideas! If asked about employee retention, many business owners often assume fostering employee satisfaction always involves
You’re working hard every day in your business. It’s the middle of the first month in a new quarter. How’s your company performing? Are You Making Money? How Do You Know? Quite simple isn’t it? These are three impactful questions that aren’t asked nearly enough by
Recently my brother suffered a massive stroke. The safe and familiar world stopped for the patient and all family members. All focus and attention drew to the situation at hand.
Our family is littered with Type A characters; it’s just one of our genetic blessings. We use our rituals, schedules, planning, organization
Inevitably, we can find ourselves in sticky situations with co-workers, clients, vendors or customers. It could be an office communication, a behavioral issue, a contract deliverable or a simple sales transaction. These can be awkward or sensitive to navigate, especially if we were involved directly or indirectly with the situation itself. Getting to resolution isn’t always easy, but when it
For many businesses, there seem to be two extremes when it comes to systems and their inherent processes, policies and procedures: too much or basically nothing.
Over time, many businesses grow organically and the system components develop and grow along with them and can sometimes become the 400 pound gorilla that lumbers about, needs to be fed, cared for and sustained.
The Walters Group, LLC
4355 East Campbell Road
Pennsburg, PA 18073
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Read my IMC profile on the Institute of Management Consultants website.