Before I had education or money or any type of power or authority, I had my word. It is the last thing I’d lose and has been instrumental in my career. Business is about relationships and relationships are about trust. When your word is good, the environment for success is fertile.
Winners Win
I was doing some networking at a charity function recently where a friend graciously described me to a businessman I had not met by saying:
“Carl is creative, aggressive, smart, tough, persistent, and very persuasive. He is a winner.”
As I reached out to shake the hand of my new acquaintance, I replied: “I’m not sure who the guy fitting that description is, but it would be interesting to meet him.”
As I was returning home that evening, the word “winner” kept flowing through my mind. I flashed back to a saying I used in early in my career to psyche myself up for business meetings. “Winners win.”
I’m older now and don’t think like that anymore. Maturity has changed my focus on winning to exactly what I am trying to win. Read More
Bad Business Partners and Free Agents
I saw a news article recently about two relatively new accounting firms embroiled in a battle over rights to the name Arthur Andersen. Both pale in comparison to the original firm, who’s unfortunate demise changed many things about doing business in this millennium.
Personally, I owe my plunge into entrepreneurship nearly 20 years ago to them.
Arthur Andersen is to this day, in my estimation, the greatest Public Accounting Firm that ever existed. When I was a partner at Grant Thornton, I admired our competitor Arthur Andersen. They had a model organizational culture and resources we could only dream about. We very infrequently beat them in head to head competition for clients. They had many times the revenue and personnel we had and the dollars they allocated to training and national office personnel and publications was on par with our entire firm’s operating budget. Yet 30 years later, Grant Thornton flourishes and Andersen was sold in pieces and has vanished. Read More
Biblical Leadership… and Doubt
None of us has a crystal ball. Our inability to definitively know how our actions will impact the future brings anxiety, hesitation, and doubt. Ultimately, the ability to leap comes from some element of trust. Trust your experience, trust your logic, trust your instincts, trust God. Wouldn’t it be nice to know?
I am here to contend that knowing doesn’t make it any easier. I will cite two incidents from the Bible in defense of that premise.
Case #1- Moses Read More
