Management
Change is hard in business. A few things routinely get messed up: * Pulling the trigger. Think: "wait, are we still discussing this change or did we just decide to do it." I can't tell you the number of times I've heard that quote in
Management
When I listen to senior executives talk about their first- and second-line managers, I sometimes get pretty concerned. That happens when I hear what I call "good enough" thinking. "She's doing a solid job, but nothing too inspirational." "He's not
Management
"The wisdom of the wise, and the experience of the ages, may be preserved by quotation." -- Isaac D'Israeli Browsing my tweetstream I ran into this wonderful website the other day and instantly retweeted it, but also made a note to come back to have a deeper
Sometimes leaders have second agendas: * CEO: I want to win for my shareholders and prove I can take a company public. * Founder: I want to win for my shareholders and destroy the great evil at Microsoft. * Volleyball coach: I want to win the league and prove to the world that
AR
Say you’re considering going out to dinner in a city you’ve never visited before and there are two different surveys of local restaurants that you can use to help choose a place to eat: * Survey 1, which is taken by randomly asking customers leaving restaurants about their experience.
M&A
As mentioned in my recent Curse of the Megaround post, some companies that find themselves flush with cash and under heavy pressure to grow, decide to embark on dubious acquisitions to help shore up the growth story. As one reader it put it, you can summarize your megaround post with
Bubbles
With what everyone seems reluctant to call a bubble in late-stage, private financing in full swing, I thought I'd do a quick post to drill into a concept I presented in my 2015 predictions post, something I call the curse of the megaround. We will do that
Communications
There are two types of people in business: * Simplifiers: who make complex things simple * Complexifiers: who make simple things complex Quick joke: What does a complexifier call a simplifier? Answer: "Boss." Somewhere, somehow, some people decided that in business you need to make everything complicated and speak using
Management
One thing I try to teach all new (and many old) managers is the simple, somewhat counter-intuitive rule that conflict avoidance causes conflict. Example: a manager has problems with an under-performing employee, but doesn't tell them that their work is below expectations and they need to
Churn
I was chatting with a fellow SaaS executive the other day and the conversation turned to churn and renewal rates. I asked how he calculated them and he said: Well, we take every customer who was also a customer 12 months ago and then add up their ARR 12 months
About two years ago, I did a post with a chart from JMP that showed the correlation between the value of a SaaS business and its growth rate. Today, I'm back with a chart from RBC [1] that shows things haven't changed. The correlation here is
Management
At Disney -- a company that is truly focused on customer experience -- every “cast member” (i.e., employee) gets six weeks of training before they see a “guest” (i.e., customer). "Face characters" (e.g., Snow White walking through the park) spend an additional 40 hours just watching and