It was just before Christmas when he began suspecting something may be wrong. Although he didn’t have a cold, he had a persistent cough that he couldn’t alleviate. Yet, as we celebrated the holidays together, to me he seemed as healthy as ever. My father, who is also my partner and the President and CEO of our company, has always been in excellent shape. He is an athletic sixty-one year old man, who goes to the gym every morning, and has never been over weight. But he also smoked for thirty years, and though he quit smoking over a decade ago, his suspicion rightly prompted him to visit his doctor. On Monday, January 4th, the doctor ordered a chest X-ray. On Tuesday, January 5th, his suspicion was confirmed, and after a series of tests and scans in the weeks that followed he was diagnosed with stage-3 lung cancer…

ust when I thought I couldn’t endure another new TV reality show, CBS premiered its newest series, Undercover Boss, last Sunday night after Super Bowl XLIV. The show follows some of Corporate America’s big-time Presidents and CEOs as they anonymously take on entry-level jobs within their companies while unsuspecting employees are kept in the dark thinking they’re taking part in a documentary. Speaking for myself, and based only on the premier, I’ll give Undercover Boss a thumbs up for its entertainment value, but I’ll give it two thumbs up for confirming a basic truth inherent to successfully running a business regardless of size: An experiential and hands-on approach to management is still the best way to lead an organization to higher effectiveness, efficiency, and profitability. Read on…

There’s no substitute for hard work. It’s one of those traits that says something about a person and their character. But in our increasingly competitive and ever-shrinking global marketplace, hard work alone will only get us so far. Add to that the growing awareness amongst many professionals of the need to strike more of a balance between their personal and professional lives, and you’ll start to think that something’s got to give. Or does it? More and more we see that the answer to meeting both of these challenges simultaneously lies not in working harder but in working smarter. The concept of working smart is in no way a new one – but in this day and age of iPhones and Wifi Hotspots, if we truly want to work smarter, we’re going to have to embrace technology – and for two very different reasons. Read on…

Have we learned our lesson yet, or are we still clinging to Corporate America’s outmoded philosophy about the function of business? Despite the recent financial meltdown and the billions spent on bailouts, I’m not sure that big business has accepted responsibility for perpetrating the myth that businesses exist only to make a profit. I would never argue against the fact that profit is the lifeblood of any business, and that without it we’re dead in the water, nor will I deny any business of that most basic right to earn as much profit as they deserve while perpetually striving for more, but the “profit-only” mentality has proven to be an inadequate platform. It limits everything from employee motivation and productivity to profit itself. Eventually the deficiencies inherent to that philosophy catch up to the organizations that espouse it and sooner or later the wheels start to come off. Too much of a good thing? That depends on how we define “good”. I don’t know much, but I know that what we thought was good turned out to be bad. Really bad.