Two days ago, our cruise ship, the Viking Mars pulled into Lofoten, Norway, where fishing for Arctic Cod has been a mainstay for over 1000 years. The cod spawn there each January and men from all over Norway would go there to fish. They would hang the fish to dry and because it doesn’t quite freeze and the winds blow all the time, the fish didn’t need to be salted to be dried. They call their product “stock fish”. That and meager farming provided subsistence for centuries. >
Does it scare you to say “no” to clients? This is the time to try it with great consideration for the consequences. Many times when you or your sales team says yes, the internal cost is extremely high. With the supply chain disrupted, salaries going up, price of gas soaring, etc., anything out of your sweet spot may need to be repriced or refused. >
Many CEO’s that I work with as a Vistage Chair have a different reality from the title they show on their business cards. I call it the CWO- Chief “Whack-a-Mole” Officer. >
In his book The Growth Dilemma, Ami Kassar has a series of questions to evaluate how risk tolerant you are in your business. If he gave you $1 million, would you invest it in your company or put it in mutual funds? >
Sales people think of inventory as an overflowing basket of goodies. There should always be extra, just in case.
Operations people >
When we arrived in Orchha for lunch, we discovered that our train to Agra was currently 3 hours late and likely to be later or maybe cancelled.
Here is the long-term problem: wages in the US at the bottom to middle have stagnated or fallen in the last 30 years.* Most millennials do not believe they will earn >
Last week we talked about how many CEO’s are really behaving like Chief Whack-a-Mole Officers. The same problem keeps popping up over and over again and they keep whacking it to no avail. And I shared some important questions you should ask yourself if you self-identified as a CWO. Your answers should begin to help you stop your futile habit of solving systemic issues within your company by applying the same old whack.
Now for part two. The winner of whack-a-mole goes after those pesky moles the fastest. That reminds me of checklist management. >
