Adam Bryan published a really interesting interview in the NYT of Phil Libin, CEO of Evernote, who has some interesting culture practices.  Read on! Q. So tell me something about your culture. A. We recently implemented something called Evernote Officer Training. I got this idea from a friend who served on a Trident nuclear submarine. He said […]

Higher bonuses and incentives for white collar work reduces performance?  Watch this!

Want the peace of mind and freedom that comes with knowing you have all the support you need from your own people?  Now you can buy the book! Chip Conley, best-selling author of “PEAK: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo From Maslow” and CEO of Joie de Vivre Hospitality:

I’m a big fan of Yanik Silver and Maverick Business Adventures, and was delighted to get an opportunity to share the CEOFlow concepts with a group of his CEO customers. Here is the full audio interview: And the transcript: Yanik Silver And CEOFlow Call Transcript

Trying to address important or sensitive issues over email just exacerbates the problem. Always meet in person or pick up the damn phone! There’s just too much opportunity to misinterpret or miscommunicate, resulting in unnecessary anxiety or drama. What about scheduling an impromptu meeting? Or calling the person? If you can’t do either of them, […]

Excerpted from Kurt Daradics’ (CEO, FreedomSpeaks/CitySourced) post Fight The Resistance: “The past two months has been a blur. I wake up early, at my desk by 7am. It’s back to back meetings till really late at night. Highlights: We’ve closed significant funding for CitySourced/FreedomSpeaks. We’ve been nominated to Davos. We were selected to the Finals […]

Decision making skills, just like muscles, get better as you use them more often. As a manager, think about how much you’ve learned by exercising these muscles, and how you’ve been able to move the team forward with your confident (or at least confident-sounding) decisions. That makes sense, right? Now flip it around to look […]

I love this quote that Getz and Carney use in their book: “If you put fences around people, you get sheep,” said William L. McKnight, 3M’s chief executive, in 1924. Their premise is that If you give your workers maximum autonomy, in the right conditions and culture, they will “lead your business to higher productivity, profits and growth.”

Know any CEOs feeling overwhelmed while juggling life, employees and the world? I have a great opportunity for both you and the person that refers them to me… CEOFlow is my coaching program for CEOs. I saw, from being a CEO, working with them and knowing many of them, that it’s easy to create a […]

Here: www.Twitter.com/CEOFlow

A Visual Intention For CEOFlow Do I even need to write anything to describe my intention here, in how CEOs and their people should feel about how the culture and company work?   (Seriously – comment below if I do need to explain further!) Where Outrageous Growth Comes From It’s not from having a great product. […]

I’ve worked with, mentored and observed dozens of companies over the past couple of years. It’s not uncommon for the double whammy of clutter and pressure to make companies and people so busy that they can’t get anything done!

The brute force methods that used to work so well, such as “work harder,” “hire more,” “spend more” aren’t true strategic or competitive advantages. Anyone can work hard, hire people and raise more money.

Alexander Kjerulf is a great writer, and I recommend you check out his blog. I’ve included a sample here of his last post (“The seeeeeeriously cool way out of a downturn”) that’s very relevant to what CEOs are dealing with today.

By the way, I would never tell a CEO to do everything they can to avoid layoffs. Layoffs can hurt a culture, or it can help it – it depends on how they’re handled, and the unique situation of the company. In fact, I’m often suggesting CEOs consider layoffs before they’re ready to accept the necessity themselves, because lots of companies, especially startups, tend to overhire and have too many people anyway. Boards and CEOs like to make aggressive hiring plans based on aggressive growth…which often doesn’t come as fast as they want.

In Silicon Valley/Los Angeles it’s pretty grim here for many CEOs/owners – especially the ones of venture-funded companies. I see that the more stressed they get, the less able they are to get a clear picture of what they need to do to succeed. Whether it’s racing fast cars or going for a hike, getting some mental space, regularly, makes a big difference in your productivity (a big reason why I have CEO groups going in SF and LA – getting together with peers can also create that space).

Eric Golden (CEO of Equipois) & I (Aaron Ross bio) are organizing a formal, facilitated CEO group here on the westside that will meet monthly. The theme of CEOFlow is to explore what it takes to create predictable revenue & sustainable growth. It will consist of a fixed group of up to 12 CEOs which will meet in person and support each other in navigating through the economic turmoil, generating revenue and working with investors and customers in the new climate.

I spent Friday morning at the Sand Hill Road offices of Battery Ventures, where a dozen CEOs took up temporary residence to discuss what to do about sales cycles that have grown longer every month since September, why most no longer discuss sales leads with their VCs and some of the surprising differences between selling to a new customer versus getting an existing customer to renew.

What CEO or VP Sales wouldn’t relate with this image?  Usually the cause of the ‘hot coals’ is the shift from organic growth (based on founders’/investors relationships) to proactive growth, which is based on efforts that generate predictable results.  However, any big change in the environment, like the current economic turmoil, can throw a company […]

As I wrote about in My original notes on frustrations with the way work, uh, works, PebbleStorm: CEOFlow is like “advanced PebbleStorm”. I’ve been playing with my CEOFlow circles for awhile, and finally this morning they really clicked: Sales advisory service: www.CEOFlow.com/services Subscribe to CEOFlow by Email

I’ve always really liked the team over at Marketo, which offers lead management software for email marketing, lead nurturing, lead scoring, sales lead insight, and closed-loop reporting. Jon Miller has a popular and excellent blog, “Modern B2B Marketing”. They just published an interview with me… The next interview in the B2B Marketing thought leader interview […]

The CEO is the person who sends the ripples out through the company that will inspire or de-motivate people. To maintain a productive and energizing environment, we need you (the CEO) to stay in a sweet spot as much as possible, so that you can inspire employees and customers just by being who you are.