Mark Miller's Blog, page 12

Growing a “Small” Company

Have you ever noticed how often the counter-intuitive strategy, or the contrarian view yields the best return? If you’ve not thought about this, maybe today’s post will help.One example is our attempt to grow a small company. Clearly, most leaders are trying to grow a large company – the bigger the better. But what would happen if you could grow a small one?

That’s the journey we’re on at Chick-fil-A, Inc. We are approaching $5 billion dollars in annual sales. That’s a lot of chicken. But what...

Time Management is Not the Issue

Time is a leader’s most important asset. If we are effective as leaders, where we invest our time yields a return. However, many leaders, myself included, have often pursued a different path. We chased the holy grail of improving our time management skills. We were wrong.

Yes, I’m a huge fan of eliminating time wasters and creating efficiencies – this is common sense. However, time management is a myth – you’ve probably heard this before. but I’ll say it again…

No one can manage time.

Time is it...

Today’s Challenge: Should I Take the Job?

I do a lot of career counseling. I’ve never really understood why – working with one company for more than 35 years severely limits my real world experience. Often, the questions I receive revolve around finding a job. That’s not the question I’ll address today. Today’s Challenge: Should I take the job?

Again, I feel the need to cite my limited experience here. All my job and career changes have been at the discretion of my organization. I’ve never had a choice – unless I had decided to leave....

Over Deliver

In a competitive world, how do you and I distinguish ourselves as leaders? If you’ve been reading my work for long, you know I believe being a servant leader is a great place to start. The world is starving for outstanding leadership.

Beyond the admonition to serve, you may be wondering if I’ve got any other advice to offer.

Yes… Over Deliver.

This is not a new idea. It’s been around for ages. I’ve long been a proponent, but I haven’t written much about it. Recently, I heard Jack Welch, the form...

Vision – A Lot More Than Words

One of the never-ending responsibilities of a leader is to remind people what we’re trying to accomplish and why it matters. This is the essence of vision casting. Unfortunately, most leaders under communicate their preferred picture of the future.

If the leader is sold out to the accomplishment of the vision, why would he or she under-communicate it? There are probably several contributing factors to this phenomena. Perhaps I’ll write more about some of the other root causes in the future. To...

Today’s Challenge: Hired Hands

Have you ever found yourself working with people who really didn’t seem to care about the assignment at hand or the organization who paid them? I hope not, but I’m guessing you have. This week’s question is: What causes some employees to be disengaged?

If you believe the most recent survey of American workers, the number of disengaged workers has reached epidemic proportions. The cost of allowing this to continue is so high it cannot be calculated – more than just the economic impact, the wast...

Choose Greatness

Did you take Latin in high school or college? Unfortunately, I did not – nor did I take Spanish, French or German. My counselors thought it best I focus on English. Decades later, I’m still working on it!

The truth is, I only know one Latin word. If you, like me, missed the cultural and academic advantage of studying this ancient language, you should at least know this one word…

Quantuvis

It’s a fantastic word, a very powerful word for leaders. It literally means, “as great as you choose.” There...

Who Helps You Make Important Decisions?

For thousands of years, wise leaders have assembled people around them to help them make good decisions. This practice can easily be found throughout the pages of history, but it also persists today – among the best leaders.

Sometimes those serving in this capacity are in formal positions: cabinet members, board of directors, and some even hold a title of advisor or counselor. In ancient days, they were sometimes called “Wise Men.”

While all these more formal manifestations may be insightful, I...

Today’s Challenge: My Leader’s Not Growing

Each week, I respond to a question submitted by a leader. Today’s question has two parts: What do I do if my leader’s not growing and doesn’t support my growth? My counsel for any of you who find yourself in this situation is two-fold…

First, I’ll give you the same advice I would give someone working for a leader who is growing – help your leader be successful. I’ve written about this before – here’s a link to a post entitled, If You Want to Lead Well…

Also, your leader may be growing in ways y...

Fruit Basket Turnover

What do you think about when you hear the term fruit basket turnover? Where did that phrase come from anyway? At our organization, that’s the term we’ve used for decades to describe a massive reorganization.

Fortunately, unlike many companies, our efforts to restructure have not been designed to respond to downturns in the business or resulted in layoffs. We restructure for different reasons. Here’s a partial list…

Growth – Whatever structure you have, even if brilliantly designed, will become...