As the year comes to an end, many people (myself included) typically take this time to reflect on the past year and plan for the next. I was looking back at my 2023 and realized something interesting. I have 134 posts here on this blog, stretching back to August of 2017. That’s an average of […]
In both my professional career and personal life, I’ve found myself working very frequently with SOWs and contracts. (Note that in this blog post, I will use the terms “SOW” and “contract” interchangeably.) But there was one specific time that I really gained some specific insight into this area. I was involved with an HOA, […]
There’s a personality trait I’ve seen with high-quality leaders, a soft skill if you will. I’m not really sure what it is called, but I heard a person one time refer to it as “bandwidth”. But that’s not quite right. Let me try and explain it. As a senior business leader, you might have dozens […]
So I like measurements and KPIs as much as the next business manager but I am always concerned about being too overly-reliant on metrics, especially along the lines of whether the right things are being measured and optimized. It’s not even whether or not you are measuring the right things, it’s also understanding that when […]
Want to hear a secret about me? Come closer, I’ll share it. Ready? I am TERRIFIED of flying. What’s funny about it is that I fly a lot, but still on every flight I’m gripping the armrest with white knuckles, fearing for my life. And yet intellectually I know I’m safe. I’ve studied a lot […]
When you are a startup or a smaller business, it can be easier to tell whether you are actually making money. I recall working with a lot of small business owners and many of them literally were of the mindset, “Is there money in the checking account at the end of the month? Is it […]
I’ve observed something interesting lately, and to be honest it has me a little confused. When tasks or projects are being established and assigned, I’m seeing people not wanting to work on a project or task when asked. “I don’t have any experience in that area,” they say. “I’ve never done it before.” The reason […]
I’m going to do something I think I’ve never done before…I’m going to make a video game analogy. So unless you’ve played Starcraft or Warcraft or some other strategy game, you might want to go watch a YouTube video on the game. Alternatively, I think you can use chess or checkers as an example, we […]
Let’s do an introspective exercise. If someone asked you, what do you actually DO at your job, what would you say? If you were to ask someone else the same question, most people would probably say, “I build X”, “I maintain Y”, or “I provide service Z”, something like that. But what’s interesting is, in […]
A phenomenon I see quite frequently is people underpricing themselves. They are convinced that they need to price low in order to win a contract, or convince a client to commit. This is probably true to a degree, but as a business leader or owner you still have to look at your own financials. Let’s […]
Knuggets of Knowledge 