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Showing posts with the label Entrepreneur

Is the Next Generation of Your Family Business Entrepreneurial Enough?

The great secret of business families that achieve tremendous wealth and hold onto it for generations is that they persistently promote the entrepreneurial spirit that led to their initial success. That drive — a combination of ambition, sheer will, and the willingness to take calculated risks — is integral to long-term success, particularly in challenging times. One third-generation family CEO we know recently delivered a powerful message to his teenaged next generation when he said, “In times like this, a lot of companies will go bankrupt. But, because we’ve always run our family business on the tenets of entrepreneurial drive and diversification, our family business will survive this crisis and be in a position to prosper in the long term. Learn from this experience and think about what you can do as an entrepreneur.” This is valuable advice, not just for the younger generation as they grow and develop as individuals, but also for the future of the family businesses in gen

The Hard Truth About Innovative Cultures

A culture conducive to innovation is not only good for a company’s bottom line. It also is something that both leaders and employees value in their organizations. In seminars at companies across the globe, I have informally surveyed hundreds of managers about whether they want to work in an organization where innovative behaviors are the norm. I cannot think of a single instance when someone has said “No, I don’t.” Who can blame them: Innovative cultures are generally depicted as pretty fun. When I asked the same managers to describe such cultures, they readily provided a list of characteristics identical to those extolled by management books: tolerance for failure, willingness to experiment, psychological safety, highly collaborative, and nonhierarchical. And research supports the idea that these behaviors translate into better innovative performance. But despite the fact that innovative cultures are desirable and that most leaders claim to understand what they entail, they are

Twenty Smart Business Buzzwords

Some words may grate on your nerves, but business leaders are still using "disrupt," "synergy" and "ideate." You should too. Spend any amount of time in a corporate environment and you'll likely notice there are some words that seem to come up on a daily basis. Certain verbiage becomes part of the  corporate culture  and soon, you may feel as if you need to use it to fit in. While they can change from one day to the next, most corporate buzzwords have a positive meaning. They're used to boost morale and motivate everyone involved in the conversation. Here are 20 of the top business buzzwords that you should make an effort to work into your vocabulary. 1. Impact Impact is a powerful word that has become a favorite of business professionals.  Grammarians argue  that the word is being used improperly, urging you to use "affect" instead, but businesses love it. 2. Corporate Synergy Half of the people who use this term likely

How Successful Leaders Think

We are drawn to the stories of effective leaders in action. Their decisiveness invigorates us. The events that unfold from their bold moves, often culminating in successful outcomes, make for gripping narratives. Perhaps most important, we turn to accounts of their deeds for lessons that we can apply in our own careers. Books like  Jack: Straight from the Gut  and  Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done  are compelling in part because they implicitly promise that we can achieve the success of a Jack Welch or a Larry Bossidy—if only we learn to emulate his actions. But this focus on  what a leader does  is misplaced. That’s because moves that work in one context often make little sense in another, even at the same company or within the experience of a single leader. Recall that Jack Welch, early in his career at General Electric, insisted that each of GE’s businesses be number one or number two in market share in its industry; years later he insisted that those same busi