I once worked for a lady who, when it came to picking up trash in her parking lot, maintained to me that the standard she stepped over was the standard she accepted. I had lost that quote for a while until, more recently, I had the chance to walk through a parking lot this summer with an intern […]

In an era of laser-focused data management and dynamic information dashboards, few business operators don’t have a simple set of “key performance indicators” that suggest performance over time. From a leadership perspective, one challenge within a team dynamic is building consensus around which numbers matter the most. In fact, managers tend to spend a great amount of time figuring […]

Kudos to the Currituck Chamber team for planning an economic conference this fall, and it is no small feat to see the head of the Richmond Fed, Tom Barkin, as a speaker. Leaders are learners, of course, and to be able to gather in one place and one time to hear from excellent thought leaders about […]

One of the hardest things for an entrepreneur to do is to let others make decisions in their stead. It sounds easy, and with the growth of business it’s inevitable, and yet when the time comes it’s extraordinarily difficult. Of course the risk is that when others take actions they’ll inevitably make mistakes and those mistakes will have ramifications (just like the […]

Small Things Often Make the Difference Many, if not most, of us are in the business of creating moments that matter for other people. To be sure, if we’re good at it our businesses can flourish and yet many of our toughest challenges lie not in the big picture but in the details. Customer service leader […]

Leadership, in many ways, comes down to our ability to articulate a vision and then in turn our ability to influence others around that vision. Sounds easy, of course, and yet we know in our lived experience that it’s actually very hard. Noted professor Jonah Berger, in his recent book Magic Words, suggests that there are actually a range […]

In a place defined by water in so many cases, a ready analogy for leadership strategy lies in nautical references. For example, as the economy overall continues to send a series of confoundingly mixed signals it’s important for the business community to prepare for a wide range of scenarios. In thinking about preparing our businesses, the nautical analogy is rough […]

The famous Jim Collins, of so much business thinking, in a recent executive presentation mentioned that nothing shed so much light on the true values of an organization as the decisions on who to put in key places. Said differently, Collins was suggesting the people make all the difference, even in a digital age, and that […]

As we all leap into the New Year, few among us don’t begin the year with some sense of intention–whether it’s a resolution, a new goal, or a desire for change, we all hopefully have a sense of where we’d like to be and that’s a great first step. But it’s not effective alone. As a […]

Good leaders are good learners. And that means, in many cases, good learners are also good readers and by extension, good leaders are good readers. That makes sense as we consider the behavioral science around leadership behaviors–in addition to being self-aware and self-reflective, good leaders learn from others and seek ways to apply what they’ve learned because they are future-oriented. The […]

We’ve all heard the maxim around the importance of making a strong first impression. Yet, for so many of us, consistently making a great first impression isn’t something we really think about…that is, until we hear some of the science around it. It turns out that first impressions–particularly around trustworthiness–are made in literally a tenth of a […]

Few among us don’t know that as leaders one of our primary responsibilities is to think about the future and position our organizations within that future.  Of course, that’s much easier said than done–in practice, it’s just plain hard to do.  That said, there are always a few current books out there on the topic that […]

One thing we’ve learned in the real estate business over more than forty years is that in so many circumstances we have a tendency to assess a partnership on both cash flow and price while discounting the human element of the people within the partnership. Perhaps ironically, if we imagine a deal in terms of a […]

In what remains one of, if not the tightest, labor markets in history making sure our teams are well composed is one of the hardest challenges the business community is facing right now.  Across industries, making sure the right people are on the bus is in many cases the pivotal value proposition in the eyes […]

As we build our businesses, one key leadership philosophy we’ll all wrestle with is the dynamic around building a centralized versus a decentralized business model. While there is a lot of worthy thinking around what model works best for what goal, from a leadership perspective it’s key to understand the pros and cons of the different models […]

One sure sign that you’re on the path of an entrepreneur is the common dynamic that by solving one emergent problem you often create two others; for example, you solve for expediency in one way by creating higher costs and more risk in another way. Of course, the mark of the entrepreneur is both to know […]

Few among us aren’t overwhelmed to some extent by the sheer volume of our electronic communication traffic–phone calls, emails, texts, chats, and team/zoom platforms are growing in their demands for our time. While in many ways that’s a good thing, it can also be a bad thing as it relates to our effectiveness as business leaders. […]

As we all try and achieve a good balance in our working lives between planning for the future and reacting to the present, few among us get it right all of the time. In fact many of us, truth be told, probably spend 9 out of 10 working minutes on reaction as compared to proaction. While […]

As spring begins to arrive, it’s a great time to reflect on any personal habits we’d like to improve upon whether it’s starting new ones, continuing ones that are working well, or even–and this is the hardest part–stopping ones that don’t work anymore, now is the time. As we remember our pain points from last year, […]

Just about all of us would agree that strategic thinking is vital to the success of our businesses over the long-term and yet at the same time just about all of us will, on a daily basis, have a lot of other pressing tasks that make dedicating the time to think about our businesses strategically an […]