I taught an Ethical Leadership class at Virginia Tech and posed a question to my students the first day of class- “What is a well lived life for you?” It is worth considering. People have various answers for this, but most talk about having good relationships with family and friends, leaving a legacy of something …

Business plans tend to be mostly head, and mostly left brain at that. They describe a business idea for making and selling stuff, and good ones present strong reasons and compelling data. That’s important, and trumps so many plans that offer little more than grandiose assertions and generic arguments. But the heart of any business …

In another sterling example of checking brains at the nonprofit boardroom door, I recently learned of a charity that is financially on the ropes. Poor decisionmaking, weak leadership, the struggling economy, and ho-hum programming have this cultural entity (with a multi-million facility) on the verge of collapse. No one is currently at the helm, and …

After thirty years in the non-profit sector, I often find myself questioning, not what we do, but how we label what we do — and how those labels often limit us. The best example of that concept, I believe, is the label “Annual Fund.” It seems as if, for as long as there have been …

The benefits of having a business plan include: Helping you to clarify your vision and deciding whether or not to forge ahead with the idea. Determining if your product and/or service has a sufficient market to support it and whether or not it will be profitable. Providing an estimate of your start-up costs and how …

Recently someone asked for a simple definition. As it turns out, business plans mean different things to different people. I tend to think of them as presenting the vision or goals for a business, along with a road map for achieving those goals. It can be sketched on a napkin, written on a few pages, …

Over the years, I’ve reviewed books and articles about business planning, and written some myself, but I can’t remember one of them that said much about luck. Sure, risk – which is really bad luck – comes up often. Watch out for things like slow sales growth, unexpected competitors, new regulations, price drops, expensive labor …

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If I think about “Leader” as a job description I get confused. How can anyone “Lead” all the time? How exhausting! A sure recipe for failure! An invitation to the dread-disease BURNOUT. Don’t you at least need to “manage” your own schedule? What about “Management” as the complete and total sum of what you do …

Do companies care about the intent of one’s actions, or just the results? While we think that our intentions should matter, if an unethical action takes place, do we really care why? Let me know what you would do in the following dilemma: Alternative #1 – You are taking care of a chatty 3-year old. …