In professional sports, a major focus of each year centers around the draft. The draft, and the typical free agency period that follows, is the time when a team can acquire new young talent and sign proven veterans. It forces each team to determine its strengths and weaknesses, to identify its most essential needs, and

The recent scandal at Volkswagen demonstrates how a lack of values can severely damage or potentially destroy a company. Even a global market leader. Other companies that have collapsed from a lack of values – Enron, WorldCom, Stanford Financial – did so because their values, vision, mission and purpose were not authentic; they were simply

Starting a company and growing it past $25 million in revenue is no small achievement. In fact, fewer than 25% of all US companies ever achieve this mark. To get there, you have to seize an opportunity, be aggressive, make intelligent decisions and take calculated risks. After passing the $5 million mark, most founders feel

A week ago Friday, news broke that Volkswagen admitted to cheating on American air pollution tests. They did it by installing sophisticated software that was able to reduce vehicle emissions while the vehicle was being tested by emission control. This allowed their vehicles to pass emission tests yet emit up to 40 times the legal

Leadership is always a hot topic among executive teams at mid-market companies. Everyone looks for strong leadership – Boards, CEOs, VPs, managers and new employees. Some of you are natural born leaders. But for many of us, leadership is something that is learned, developed and practiced. There are many strong leaders that were not “natural”

Have you ever felt the frustration of feeling like your colleague isn’t hearing what you’re saying? You think they understand what you’re saying, but your message isn’t truly heard? Most of us have (and for some of us, it happens more than we wish). When this happens among friends and family, it’s frustrating. When this