The Resolve Firm | Blog
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The Blog section of the Resolve Firm includes topics like small business scaling, conflict resolution, performance management, strategic planning, and a slew of other critical topics for small businesses.
The Resolve Firm | Blog
4h ago
We business men and women love efficiency. What's not to love? Time is money, right?
Why not shoot for 100% efficiency in your organizational design? For goodness sake, you don't want to add the cost of more personnel until everyone on board already is significantly overstretched, right?
Wrong. Here's why:
Overstretched team members become fatigued and the quality of their work suffers. Just like their leader, they become reactive instead of creative and proactive.
In addition, team members become disenchanted with your leadership and then disengaged. "If my leader ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
1w ago
I have good news and bad news. The good news is that, as the leader of a business, you have the most power of anyone in your team, and your strengths become the strengths of your business.
Whatever behavior you value and reward multiplies. For example, if you reward integrity, then your team will have an incentive to behave with integrity.
The bad news is that, by the same token, your weaknesses become the weaknesses of the business. Behavior you don't value and reward falls away because there's no advantage for your team to do those things.
For example, if you reward profit ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
3w ago
Your Core Values determine your culture, and, to a large degree, your culture determines the performance of your team. How so?
Leaders often fall prey to The Fundamental Attribution Error (Ross, 1977); i.e., they under attribute the quality of a team member's performance to the limitations of the environment they are in. For example, calling someone "lazy" when they are underpaid and underappreciated.
You can't blame people for maximizing their outcomes/getting the best deal they can for themselves and their families in the situation they are in. If team members feel underpaid and ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
1M ago
Yep, that's what some folks say. I'm not gonna lie, there's some real joy in living in the moment and doing what feels right at the time.
However, I believe that if you want to be truly successful in business and in life, you need to clearly define what that success looks like. Otherwise it's hard to prioritize how you're going to spend your main resources: time and money.
Do you have a clear vision of success for your organization? For example, if you're going to be a 30M company you may be well staffed, but if you're going to be a 50M company you may need to hire some more folks before you'r ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
1M ago
I had a client who was the CEO of a large manufacturing company. He retired and thought he'd be delightfully happy driving his classic cars and playing golf.
After 6 months he was deeply depressed, and he was ecstatic when the company asked him to come back. What happened?
He made a common mistake of leaders by buying into The Retirement Myth: "when I have plenty of money and retire I'll finally have the freedom and happiness I've always yearned for." Maybe, but oftentimes not.
Happiness comes from a balance among the 4 major sources of happiness, and many leaders are out of balance during the ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
2M ago
,Retrain, Repurpose, or Replace?Terry Dockery, Ph.D.
I regularly coach leaders to higher levels of success, but trying to get folks to change their behavior is not always the best path to better business results.
Much of our behavior is driven by emotional stuff we aren't even aware of, and these subconscious emotional drivers sometimes aren't easily changed by rational coaching. Our subconscious emotional makeup was largely formed when were children, and these emotional drivers were designed to help us adapt to the world in which we grew up.
Asking people to change some of their d ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
2M ago
If you haven't read Part 1 of this article, then the basic idea here is that all the businesss success in the world doesn't mean much if you're not happy and enjoying the ride.
Part 1 contained my first 5 recommendations, and here are my last 5:
When all else fails, lower your standards (perhaps you're being too perfectionistic).
We all need social support and validation, but you’ll never please everyone. You don’t need to. Just find those people who love you and value you as you are.
A happy marriage (or any other important relationship) consists of a) marrying someone you really like, and b ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
2M ago
Have you heard the story of the CEO who spent the first half of his career getting rich, and then spent the second half trying to pay off his ex-spouses and buy his health back?
Financial success means very little if you're not happy. In fact, there is evidence that very wealthy people overall are the least happy people in America. While having enough money is an important source of happiness, perhaps very wealthy folks spend too much time pursuing money to the detriment of the other three major sources of happiness.
Here are the first 5 of my top 10 happiness recommendations for leaders:
1. O ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
2M ago
We Americans are famous for our love of individual freedom, i.e., our individualism. Who isn't? It's way fun to be able to do what you want to do when you want to do it, right?
All leaders know, however, that businesses succeed bigger and better when we create teamwork. The synergy of 1+1= 3 is still just as true today just as it has always been. If two teams have the same amount of talent, the one with better teamwork will win every time.
Here's how you create the ideal balance between individual freedom and teamwork in your team:
1. Understand trust. The members of your team must trust that ..read more
The Resolve Firm | Blog
2M ago
I regularly help my clients choose the right leaders for their companies--all the teamwork in the world won't make up for having the wrong team. Here are the top 13 predictors of long term leader success that we screen for:
1. Integrity: people won't respect and follow a leader without it in the long run.
2. Intellectual capacity: people with more get more done in less time.
3. Passion for the position: loving what you do is the best motivator there is.
4. Leadership: motivating people to pursue an inspiring vision.
5. Management: achieving the vision.
6. Results orientation: holding people ac ..read more