On page 207 of “Wellington and Napoleon” by Robin Neillands, he shares how Wellington had problems on November 10, 1813, the night after the Nivelle battles. Wellington’s Spanish troops pillaged the town of Ascain. They looted and set fire to houses. Although the Spaniards were useful during the fighting and they gave Wellington a larger army than Napoleon’s French commander, Soult, Wellington decided that they must be returned to Spain. Keeping one small division, he sent the rest of the […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, discusses return on investments. Return on Investment (ROI) is more than just money. As with most situations, there are 2 sides to the ROI equation. The first, and the most focused upon, is money. The other side of the equation, the one most overlooked, is to create a story, motivation, desire & challenge for the organization and its people. When leaders consider this less focused upon part of the equation, […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, discusses the difference between consultants and guides. Let’s start with the definition of consultants: “People who provide expert advice professionally.” (from Merriam Webster) They then tell you what you need to do and then leave. Merriam Webster Dictionary defines a guide as “a person who leads or directs other people on a journey.” The next time you are wondering if you should hire a consultant or if you have had […]
In our work with leaders and teams, we hear a number of reasons why success is not possible. It is shocking to hear some of these objections, since every past successful endeavor has had to overcome all of these issues. It is interesting that we hear these objections from teams that are less mature as well as those made up of experienced, “blooded” professionals. The less mature teams will publicly share these objections. More experienced teams will share these in […]
This weekend we watched the period piece called “Wives and Daughters”. While a fun “Jane Austen” type of movie, it had lots of soap opera machinations and manipulation. It is great fun to watch that in a movie but not much fun to live in real life. That is why The 2nd Law of Hadley is “The best game is no game!” There are 3 ways to get someone to behave in a certain way: Coercion: Forcing someone to do […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, talks about Operations and Allocations. Today’s leaders tend to have an operations background and thus focus on how to run more effectively. Many of our clients focus on this but they miss the cash that is generated through the operations and capacity and to allocate or borrow on that capital. Successful leaders and organizations typically also spend 80% of their time focused on Capital Allocations. Time should be spent […]
In this week’s video blog our expert guide, Don Hadley, discusses assertiveness. What is assertiveness? Our expert guides find that assertiveness goes back to communication that says to those around them, “I understand what you are saying and understand your expectations. Here are my expectations. Now let me tell you where I am coming from. Now, how can we bring these together?” Aggressiveness is very different in nature. Agressiveness is saying through behavior, words, and actions, “All I care about […]
Recently, we conducted two tough meetings (or we should say, tough for our clients): One tough meeting had to do with cash flow. The owners were trying to determine the next time they would get into dangerous territory. It took 2 1/2 hours, and we identified that come January there would be a $700,000 shortfall. It was frustrating, but the good news is that at least we now knew what the situation was and could really do something about it. […]