Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: The Truth, The Whole truth, … ????
Do we tell the truth to employees? Do we tell the whole truth? Do we do it in a timely fashion? The easy answer is yes but we all know it ain’t so and knowing when to tell the truth is important.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: Finding “A” List candidates
I have succeeded and I have failed .. you have too unless you have the most boring life on the planet. ‘A’ list actors tend to try to hide their failures but that’s not easy given today’s accessible video libraries. The same is true in business. Looking into this further, I have witnessed hundreds if not thousands of employees succeed and fail. The real winners are the ones who turn lemons into lemonade.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: The 10 Commandments of Leadership
As a CEO you need to be very concerned about your own leadership of the organization and the skills of your management team when it comes to their leadership abilities. We have all dealt with the ‘special’ individual contributor that we put up with because they seem indispensible but when it comes to management, bad behaviour or lack of appropriate people skills is unacceptable and has a multiplying effect on the whole organization. One manager who publicly derides his troops effects the whole organization and is very costly.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: So you think you’re ready to start your own business
But will it succeed? As we all know there are too many variables in business to find a ‘sure thing’. No risk, no reward. If it was too easy then it would have been done already. However I am of the opinion that up front analysis is often lacking in trying to understand if a business stands a better or worse chance of success. While I have to admit that I am occasionally amazed at successes against all odds, it is frustrating to see businesses fail for the same old predicable reasons.
- “The product we built addressed the wrong part of the market”
- “Our service was ahead of its time”
- “Our added value was not valued by the buyer”
- “The channel never understood how to sell out product”
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: Entrepreneurship and/or vs. Experience
Are Entrepreneurship and Experience really opposite ends of a spectrum?
Which one are we really looking for?
Ideally you want the executive running your company to the entrepreneur of the century but also have industry leading experience, knowledge and skills. Sometimes these are seen as conflicting characteristics: Those with yards of operating experience seem too conservative to be entrepreneurial and the real entrepreneurs have no proven operations experience. Which of these two is the show stopper or the priority for your firm.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: The Commercial cost of Marketing Ethics
Marketing is more and more used to paper-over re-engineered products of lower value. Is this the right strategy for you.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: Bad Times - Again it is all about you !
Even if you are not facing catastropic times, you need to make sure you are not adding to the problem.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: Finding Star Performers
A critical job of managers is to find the next person to supercharge the team.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perspective: Do Not Hire
Tough times uncover poor hiring processes that cost us major inefficiencies.
Ian Ferguson
CEO Rants and Raves
CEO Perpspective: Bad times are Good for us !
Time to consolidate the recent growth period at a time when we can afford to get it right.