At long last, I'm hanging my own shingle in 2021. Tempting as it was to make this "Hello World" post a shiny open-for-business billboard promoting the new venture—and fast-forward past the soul-searching, fear, and self-doubt—let me back up a bit and share how I got...
Why Effective Leaders Dare to Be a Bit Annoying
The Rule of 7 teaches us that people need to hear things multiple times—and through different mediums—to really understand, internalize, and act on them. And the people on your team are no exception.
Is Your Leadership Team On the Same Page?
Leadership teams that are aligned and working towards a shared vision, strategy, and plan are 2x more likely to achieve above-median financial performance. Is your team on the same page?
Is This the Most Important Leadership Skill?
NEWSFLASH: Coaching is the most important & deterministic skill that separates highly effective managers from average ones. Have you learned the skills and tools to be an effective coach to your people?
What Are We Really Buying Here?
A while back, a private equity friend told me: "Embarrassingly... for us, organizational due diligence has been a cursory, "check the box" exercise. But missing things—talent gaps, overstatement of opportunity, key investments we don't realize we'll need to make—has...
The Things that Talent-Focused Boards Talk About
Boards are taking a greater interest than ever before in ensuring that companies have the talent needed to drive success & returns. But what amount of your board discussions are spent discussing people?
The Silent Killer of Portfolio Company Growth
Businesses can be complex. But when “complex” becomes “complicated”—a tipping point that can become easy to surpass—that it can lead leadership teams and their boards down a slippery slope.
Are You Clear on the 20% That 80% of Your Returns Depend On?
Familiar with Pareto’s Principle? Apply this principle to driving people-powered performance in your portfolio companies, and it’s likely that 20% of the people in your portfolio companies drive 80% of the results in the business—and return to investors.
The Invisible Tax that Could Be Hosing Your Investment Returns
At a time when there is tons of chatter among investors about carried interest taxation, you may be surprised to hear: There are two massive invisible taxes that many investor-backed companies are subject to… that no one is talking about.
The Growth Lever of All Growth Levers
“A business is nothing more than people working with other people to do stuff for people.” As a PE investor, it can be easy to lose sight of this as our eyes are glued to the LBO model on our screen, or we’re in the heat of a purchase agreement negotiation. But when we stop to think about what we do through this lens, it makes common-sense why talent is the ultimate meta-lever among growth levers
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