Len Musielak
Want to change your culture? Get in the weeds.

The politics in the middle management level of most organizations is designed to make sure executives don’t really know what the culture is really like. The only way to get past it is to dive into the weeds.

Want to change your culture? Get in the weeds.
Len Musielak
COVID-19: Making the Impossible Possible

When approaching a problem or assessing a new idea, we think of all the ways that something can go wrong, blow up in our faces, or just plain fail. We are too busy trying to predict doom to even see that there is a path to success. It turns out, when we change the question from "Can we...?" to "How do we...?" nothing is impossible. Things can be difficult, inadvisable, or even unreasonable but not impossible. Don't wait for the next crisis to shift your mindset--start now.

COVID-19: Making the Impossible Possible
Len Musielak
Has COVID exposed your short-term results v. ...

The hardest part of planning for the long-term is seeing past the giant dollar sign directly in front of your face. It's huge. It's right there. It says everything is going just fine. It is also blocking your view of the cliff just ahead. COVID's business impact shows us why this is important.

Has COVID exposed your short-term results v. long-term strategy problem?
Len Musielak
Maintaining Your Company Culture with a Remote ...
Len Musielak
How A Product of 1980's Bureaucracy Can Keep ...

I can hear the eyes rolling now. How can a complicated system of surveys—developed at a time when tight rolled jeans, permed hair, and BUM equipment sweaters were in style—possibly help an agile 201x startup stay agile? Well, it can’t. However, the final capability rating is a quick way to evaluate any part of any company on the fly.

How A Product of 1980's Bureaucracy Can Keep Your Business Agile

Strategy

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Ask An Entrepreneur: Shannon Clemonds of Shannon Gail

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Ask An Entrepreneur: Shannon Clemonds of Shannon Gail

For our inaugural Ask An Entrepreneur, I spoke to my good friend Shannon Gail Clemonds owner/operator of Shannon Gail. Shannon Gail is a Chicago-based event planning firm producing 90+ weddings and events per year locally and across the United States. The team is comprised of a unique blend of business and event professionals with backgrounds in finance, marketing, design, venue management, hospitality, and catering and prides itself on being the go-to expert in all areas of event production. In its 10 years of business, the company has continued to set the bar for event management standards and has built an impressive resume of corporate and social clientele. 

Your organization has matured. Has your org chart?

Your organization has matured. Has your org chart?

You don’t need to go full hierarchy but adding a level of middle management will acknowledge the dynamics that are already present and make your organization more efficient.  You can hold onto your principles and organizational culture while still providing a framework that adequately specifies delegated decision making throughout the organization.

Strategy Drives Success in Baseball (and Business)

Strategy Drives Success in Baseball (and Business)

What are your strengths? What do you need to work on? What is the next pitch (opportunity) for your business? Will you be ready to knock it out of the park or will you foul it off? Do you know the answers to these questions or are you swinging blindly at whatever the pitcher throws? Competitive strategy is too important to leave to gut feeling, guess work, or good luck.

Follow the leader is a children's game not an innovation strategy.

Follow the leader is a children's game not an innovation strategy.

If you want to be the next Amazon, Apple, Intel, or Google the first thing you should do is disregard everything Amazon, Apple, Intel, and Uber except the fact that they followed no one. Throw out the mold. Break the barriers. Disregard the benchmarks. Ignore what you have read in every blog including this one. Forge a new path like the successful entrepreneurs before you. You can be the next great success story but only if you blaze your own trail.

Change is not a reason for change

Change is not a reason for change

Simply put, companies evolve or die.  If GE had maintained the same product line it started with when the company was known as Edison General Electric (i.e. Edison bulbs and direct current), the company would never have grown to become the multibillion-dollar multinational conglomerate it is now.  However, like New Coke and Crystal Clear Pepsi, some changes are just not warranted.

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Do Something: What to do when you can't do anything.

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Do Something: What to do when you can't do anything.

We have all been put in situations beyond our control.  We have all experienced a time where our fate or the fate of our organization rested squarely in the hands of someone or something over which we had no influence or authority. However, in my experience, there is always something you can do to improve the situation for customers.