2. Don’t kill your culture by stifling creativity
If you’ve built a culture of innovation, keeping it can become a delicate balancing act. If you push too hard, you may deny creativity by forcing people down one path. But if you let people do their own thing without checks in place, you may lose consistency. At The ACT•1 Group of Cos., a staffing, […]
3. Use a guiding principle
At international law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP, Chairman Arthur B. Culvahouse Jr. leads by using a set of values the firm wants to live by to drive everything, from hiring to giving raises, for its 2,200 employees, 1,000 of which are attorneys. “We’re a value-driven firm, so whether it’s compensating partners, deciding who to […]
4. Don’t forget where you make your money
So you think it’s time to grow your company? It’s only natural that you add more support staff and offices. Maybe it’s even time to think about dabbling in auxiliary businesses. After all, that’s how you grow, right? Not so for Stephen Shapiro, founder and chairman of Westside Estate Agency Inc., who says the above […]
5. Create a vision but revise as needed
When the economy fell apart in mid-2008 and state budget gaps left her organization with a $3 million shortfall, Lisa Rubino realized the vision and plan she had established as president of Molina Healthcare of California needed to change. “As a leader, you’ve got to be able to create clarity out of chaos because there […]
6. Figure out what your employees want
Peter H. Griffith understands his employees today live in a different world than he did when he was starting his career at Ernst & Young LLP. As vice chair and managing partner of the Pacific Southwest region, Griffith has spent a good portion of his 28-year career thinking about the environment in which people work. […]
7. Address your issues quickly and honestly
When THQ Inc. posted its fiscal 2009 net sales of $829.96 million, the company’s first year without growth in more than a decade, Chairman, President and CEO Brian Farrell didn’t ignore employee concerns. Instead, after making sharp cuts, Farrell faced the problems head-on and refocused his 2,000 employees on the task of returning to profitability. […]
8. Measure everything and hold people accountable
Mohan Maheswaran set out to rework the culture at Semtech Corp. by articulating a clear vision and road map to his team about how the company would get from point A to point B. Unfortunately, at the time, Semtech, a $294.8 million supplier of analog and mixed-signal semiconductor products, had no system in place that […]
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