How Much Should you Risk for Growth?
At one of many Alliance of Chief Executives meetings I participated in recently, I watched one member present his thinking on some significant but risky growth strategies. His $300M+ revenue company is a cash-machine with strong and accelerating profitability, mid-teens... ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Finance | Leadership | Sales | Strategy & Planning
Creating and Maintaining a High-Performance Workplace
Keeping your team in a healthy state of dissatisfaction is an underlying element of any high-performance work environment. This presentation and event dove into this controversial notion developed from a deep pool of research into high-performance environments. Four key levers... ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
How Mid-Market Companies Can Develop High-Performers
How important is it for mid-market companies to have employees who consistently strive to perform at high levels? Should mid-market CEOs worry when some employees are unenthused with their work? The answer is an emphatic yes – if strong company growth is crucial. Find out the causes of a disengaged workforce and the keys behind creating a high-performance culture that can make a real difference for the mid-market firm. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Executive Education | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Chief executives who are loyal to their lieutenants can be the enemies of performance. Such CEOs have kept many a company from hitting its numbers and sunk more than a few. A company whose senior managers are coasting on long ago accomplishments is a company that isn’t firing on all cylinders. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Executive Education | Leadership
Member Survey: Building Top Teams
We asked our members a battery of questions about how their top teams function and how they were built. The results were presented at our February 15, 2012 Round Table. Attached are the slides that were presented, with some of... ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Summary: When it comes to high stakes with key customers, face to face is the only option for a CEO. Read how Dennis Raefield, CEO of Mace Security International, salvages two grave situations; one involving a multi-million dollar deal, the other saving his company from certain death. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Summary: What happens when a CEO’s board misplaces its trust in a manipulating advisor who holds the company hostage. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Ethics | Finance | Leadership
Protecting Liquidity: Smart Strategies for Tough Times
Summary: In today's market, liquidity issues are a serious risk to companies in every industry sector. Read about how to anticipate problems and devise solutions before liquidity issues come to a state of crisis. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Alliance Founder, Paul Witkay discusses the current mood of CEOs. This article urges CEOs to start thinking long-term again and focus on leading their organizations toward compelling visions for the future. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Summary: In a dismal economy, Alliance members find ways to move forward. One company secures a financial "safety net," while another looks outside of their traditional areas of growth to form a new business, some diversify their services while others focus on customer service to help their clients stay in business or gain market share against weaker competitors. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Marketing | Strategy & Planning
Attracting and Retaining the Optimal Team
Summary: This article discusses a long-term workplace differentiation strategy that will enable you to attract and retain top talent, even in the talent shortage that challenges us all in every economic growth cycle. An ideal time to start is a year or more before the talent pool shrinks. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Keeping Control of the Top Team
Summary: In the throes of extreme high growth, a CEO brings in a top sales exec that turns out to be a charlatan. Key flags in the process of cutting through the veil are identified, and the steps taken to dismiss him are highlighted. The fallout from the firing in 2006 and the effect on the company’s subsequent growth is covered as well. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
When adversity hit, these leaders battled back and gave us all something to learn Inside Alliance private working groups, we hear with some regularity jaw-dropping events that land on the chief executive’s desk. Sometimes they are simply challenging opportunities, but often they are disasters that threaten the survival of the business. From hundreds of incredible survival stories, we’ve chosen to reveal four of the most amazing. With special permission from each CEO, we’ve told the story of the adversity they had to overcome, how they survived, and what there is for all of us to learn from their experiences. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Sequoia Capital’s Advice to their Portfolio CEOs
Sequoia Capital gathered the CEOs of their portfolio companies together for an "emergency meeting" subsequent to the meltdown of the financial markets. They presented their analysis of the current economic crisis and their recommendations to their portfolio CEOs to save their money. You can check out their presentation by clicking on “Download PDF.” Many of our Alliance CEOs have commented on Sequoia’s recommendations which were quite controversial and provocative, even amusing. We post it here so you can make your own conclusions. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Summary: A private equity firm brings in a seasoned CEO to dramatically accelerate the growth of a stable, conservative company. The CEO carefully controls his own on-boarding process designed to identify and retain great talent and create momentum company-wide for high growth. This case study details his technique. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Keeping Your Team Focused on your Value-Creation Strategy
Summary: A high growth CEO builds value by being first to the market with hot new products and technologies. But that means moving faster than is comfortable for all his teams as his organization grows. The case talks about minimizing risk on new product introductions and managing the teams that must do the work. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Summary: CEOs are too tolerant of executives that aren’t top performers and that don’t behave according to the values that the organization holds dear. CEO Jim Pouliot of CSAA talks to the Alliance about his experiences cleaning up executive teams. This essay explores why CEOs continually struggle with this issue, and what they can do about it. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Creating and Owning a Category
Summary: This CEO has a system for finding new market categories and taking commanding market share leadership. He's done it over and over again, and he tells us how in this essay. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Leaping Ahead: Courage or Discipline?
Summary: Read how taking leaps with your business can pay huge dividends. By having the courage and discipline to put innovative business ideas into action, the owner gained huge competitive advantages. The concept is laid out, as well as important steps to get started. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Thriving business gets customer requests to jump into a new business. After resisting, they go for it with excellent success. When is it wise to start another business? ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Don't Let Success Destroy your Culture
Summary: This firm's success brought in so much business that it wasn't as much fun as it used to, and that endangered the quality of the work being performed. The CEO identified a customer in particular that was causing most of the problems and resigned the account, allowing her culture of fun and originality to survive. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Summary: An entrepreneurial couple brought in outside board members to help bring in key accounts and to aid in their decision making. They diluted ownership’s vote to 50%, but the payoffs far outweigh the lack of freedom. Important pros and cons are discussed, as well as some guidelines for adding outside board members. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations
The Overly Optimistic Entrepreneur
Summary: Optimism is a natural part of entrepreneurship, but it can go too far. A bad string of luck nearly sinks the CEO’s dreams before persistence starts to pay off. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Entrepreneurship | Leadership
Shifting Gears from Startup to Scaled Enterprise
Summary: Every successful startup goes from an entrepreneurial stage to a professional enterprise. Learn how the entrepreneur also successfully made the crossing point without hitting the wall. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Operations
Summary: Customer feedback is an important part of every successful company. After scaling up his business, a CEO struggles with his company’s feedback system before closing the loop and improving response rates. Effective processes for handling feedback are examined. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations | Sales
Summary: Getting involved in non-profits opens doors and is good for business. Multiple benefits are reached when the CEO joins the board of a local charity. The right ways to go about getting involved in charity work are examined. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Ethics | Leadership
Summary: A feature-rich product is designed, but after months of development work, it is discovered that it cannot be built. Key features are dropped so that it can finally go into production. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations | Strategy & Planning
Summary: Innovation leads to powerful results. A CEO fosters a rich culture of innovation by getting the most out of his top team. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Summary: CEOs of startups must work very differently than CEOs of firms that have made their place in the market. They must be hands-on with prospective customers and with all the key decisions, from sales to marketing to engineering/product development, in order to keep the business on a straight vector towards its vision. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations
Summary: Planning for succession is a difficult topic, but an essential one. Clarifying the line between dependency and leadership is critical, and much of the work of succession is reducing dependency on the CEO. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Exiting | Leadership | Strategy & Planning
Managing Young Employees Yields Insights for All
Summary: Showing genuine concern for your employees is good for business. The founders buy a troubled business with young, troubled employees, and turn it around by deeply engaging and tapping the potential in each employee. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Re-Framing Price Increases Leads to Stepped-Up Profits
Summary: A CEO in an old-line, low-margin business finds a way to re-frame his pricing model to get his team and his customers to accept it. He modified his sales incentive package to better target the results he was looking for. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Sales
Summary: An incoming CEO fires the most senior technical expert because he won’t embrace the new values that must take hold for the firm to survive. The bold move works without significant damage. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Operations
Summary: The process of making good decisions is critical. Some firms/teams are bad at decision making, and the results can be ugly. Four decision making illnesses are discussed along with some suggestions about improvement. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | M&A
Every Business Needs a Common Enemy
Summary: Identifying a competitor or two as an “enemy” to beat is a powerful leadership tool that CEOs should use to galvanize business improvement at every level. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations | Sales
Summary: A semiconductor equipment manufacturer was in deep trouble, and replaced its founder with a new CEO, Dave Dutton. He created a new leadership culture amidst the transition chaos. The new top team prospered as did the company. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Forming Productive Friendships in Asia
Summary: A seasoned global executive intentionally cultivates the friendship of a company president in Asia and pulls down the big order. When problems crop up, the President relies on the friendship to save his job and his lifestyle. The Asian custom of entering friendships for profit is explained. ...Read More
Forum Categories: International Business | Leadership
Leadership with Other People’s Money
Summary: Building a business with other people’s money certainly isn’t any easier than bootstrapping. It takes the right connections, hard work, an understanding family, and a solid opportunity. Hear the details of Paul White’s story. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Finance | Leadership
Management by Getting Your Hands Dirty
Summary: A manager is fired, and the CEO steps into the role. The CEO fixes critical problems and builds new systems. A well-run department is passed on to a new manager. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations
Summary: A consultant provides great value and mentors the President, who being grateful, grants a three year contract, but then regrets it. Clients must always remain in control of consultants. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Summary: A retail chain has incredible training program, which instills corporate values in new hires and teaches product knowledge as well as systems and customer interface protocols. After the initial training, they weave training into the company’s routine. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Operations
Great People Doing the Right Things
Summary: A very fast growing firm has eleven good years running. Credited is an excellent top team that can finish each other’s sentences and leaves the CEO free to follow his instincts about the future. Learn how he built and maintained this team. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Summary: After seeing a presentation at the Alliance of CEOs by Chuck Smith, CEO of SBC West, it became crystal clear how powerful great communication skills can be. The audience was engaged and entertained. Read some of the key speaking techniques he used and how they can make any CEO a better communicator. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership
Compensation Systems: Giving and Getting
Summary: Read about an executive compensation system that really worked. By generously sharing the bottom line, the owner quadrupled his take home. The concept is laid out, and critical elements to successful implementation are detailed. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership
Summary: As part of a going public strategy, the founder brings in a new CEO, but it doesn’t work well. After two years, the founder steps back in, but the passion is gone. A new replacement is successful. Explore issues surrounding maintaining a founder’s passion over time. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Exiting | Leadership
Cut Customer Costs Instead of Prices
Summary: Low-tech concrete meets high-tech logistics when RMC Pacific Materials acts to save their customers money through integration and technology, rather than price cutting. The result: industry leadership and a choice contract: The new Oakland –San Francisco Bay Bridge. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Operations
Face to Face with Your Important Clients & Customers
Summary: It’s easy for to get wrapped up in all sorts of organizational issues and drift apart from our clients and customers. This story highlights how Gene Miller, Chairman and CEO of a major law firm, invests time with his key clients, and the benefits to all CEOs if they do likewise. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Leadership | Sales
Summary: New CEO steps in ready to ramp up, but discovers serious product problems and has to re-engineer and refinance to save the firm. Read how to avoid these kinds of surprises. ...Read More
Forum Categories: Human Resources | Leadership | Operations
"I can't imagine being a CEO without having the Alliance as part of my CEO tool kit."
John Rule, CEOApplied Aerospace StructuresAlliance Member since 2000
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