CEO Insider

The “water cooler talk,” a seemingly casual, friendly conversation with co-workers and managers that was much lamented after the past year of workplace shutdowns. Beyond connecting with coworkers on a personal level, these one-on-one conversations are deeply valuable in solidifying professional relationships by building collegiality with peers and managers, and...

Family is emotions, business is economics and they are inseparable in a family business. Traditionally speaking, a family-owned business is defined as one with two or more family members involved in the ownership and control, participating in building the world economy. The senior management is likely to be headed by...

A prospective client recently approached me about working with “Ted,” an operations leader at one of the company’s facilities. For years, Ted had been the target of a consistent stream of complaints from his team and their efforts to remove him. We discovered that the problem was that Ted would...

In business and life, we often find ourselves at a crossroads or an intersection, if you will.  Imagine you’re sitting in your car, and the light is red. Once it turns green, you can’t just sit there. Throwing it in reverse (or making a U-turn) is not typically a good...

A CEO change is always an exciting moment for all parties involved. Boards invest immense time and resources to find the next CEO for the firm. Stakeholders, inside and outside of the firm, are on their toes, as they try to anticipate where the new leader will take the organization....

Too many times, the emphasis placed on Diversity, Inclusion and Tolerance Programs, or DI&T Programs, relate primarily to issues of minorities, such as race and religion. Instantly, this makes many people think, “OK, so this program is really not about me” or “OK, this is just another program for the...

The global pandemic catalyzed enduring change in how work gets done and the roles business leaders are now expected to take. Even before the 2020 lockdown, CEOs found themselves whipsawed by rising pressures to lead their companies through change, and shorter time frames to do it in. In 2019, two...

Women’s issues aren’t just for women, they are issues for business, for men and for society, yet the minute they are framed as ‘women’s issues’ or even the more neutral ‘gender’ issues, there is a tendency for whole swathes of people, mostly men, to disengage. They think it’s all over...

Being an entrepreneur, or as I like to consider myself—a serial entrepreneur, one that has tons of ideas—I have to be a dreamer. I’m a dreamer who starts up a company and goes sailing with it. And then I have another dream. And then, another and another.  The key is...

President Biden has set an ambitious goal: reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions to 50% below 2005 levels by 2030. If CEOs are not equally ambitious in their approach to running their companies then Biden’s objective is in jeopardy and such an outcome invites invasive government regulation. Every CEO I know...