Where Do Leaders Come From?

If you want to grow your business, you must grow your people. In the small and mid-sized companies that I work with, there is—not always, but more times than not—a sizable gap between the CEO and his or her direct reports. It’s not a skill gap. It’s a leadership gap.
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We’re All Going to Mess Up

No one is perfect, we make mistakes. Situations and circumstances change, making what we’ve done wrong. However well we may have planned, prepared, anticipated, something happens and we fail.
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10 Top Traits of the Boss You Always Wanted

Everyone can recognize a great manager a mile away, so why is it so hard to find one? We all remember a few that are “legends in their own mind,” but that doesn’t do it. In fact, the clue here is that the view in your mind is the only one that matters, rather than the other way around.
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Master Your Small Business Team

Who invented the light bulb? If you said Thomas Edison, you’d only be partly correct. Edison never took credit for solely inventing the light bulb. He acknowledged it took a team of diverse talent with a passion for excellence.
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Are You Measuring What Matters?

In my later years with the Vikings, we measured and studied the criteria of a successful offense, and it made a huge impact on our team. And believe it or not, we did it by applying lessons I learned on the factory floors of the textile mills of South Carolina and Georgia.
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10 Tips to Keep Your Team Positive

Your sales and customer service team are the primary customer contact for every business. What does their attitude say about your company? If some of your team are not communicating the message you want, here are 10 questions to ask yourself to ensure they stay positive, focused on message and deliver an exceptional customer service experience.
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Sometimes You Have to Scramble

Making sure you have a plan is important. But what’s even more important is being ready to adjust and change your plan when you encounter reality. The same scrambling ability that helped me in my football career has proven its worth again and again in my businesses, too.
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