The CEO’s #1 job

We confuse busyness with strategy. We fill the calendar with reviews, standups, pipeline calls, and board prep, and we tell ourselves we are leading. We are not. We are managing. The two are not the same, and the gap between them is where companies stall. The...

Loving your captor

Stockholm syndrome isn’t just a hostage story. It’s a boardroom story. A leadership story. A culture story. The leader who built the company keeps the team loyal to an idea that stopped working three years ago. Not through force. Through familiarity....

Just be in it

I sat watching a match the other night that I didn’t expect to stay up for. The South African team, ranked well below their South Korean opponents, walked onto the pitch against all reasonable expectation. The commentators were already narrating the inevitable....

The grind is the gift

We romanticize the result and forget the road that got us there. Parents know this. Ask one who is a few years past the hard years. Past the arguments and the ultimatums and the late nights, wondering if they were doing it right. There’s a sparkle in the eye...

Earn the mic

I’ve been watching a lot of television lately. It’s the World Cup. While entertaining for the sport, it is also a study in what happens when the microphone finds the wrong person. Someone gets booked. They sit across from the host. They have a title. They...

Raise it. Don’t lower it

The freelancer drops her price.The agency offers a discount.The consultant throws in extra hours for free. All because someone said no. But no doesn’t always mean the price was wrong. Sometimes it means the buyer was wrong. Not every customer is your customer....