CEO Shoptalk – The Musings of the Big Red Car

CEO Shoptalk: The Escape Hatch, The Startup Pre-Nup

Big Red Car — Mon, 06 May 2024 17:07:51 +0000

When a founder is giving birth to their new baby, he or she is filled to overflowing with the giddy excitement of creating life. Sure, they may create Corporate Bylaws, Articles of Incorporation, a Shareholder Agreement, or even an Operating Agreement — really good companies have Employment Agreements which subsume job descriptions with each of […]

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CEO Shoptalk: Perception, Perspective, Persuasion

Big Red Car — Wed, 27 Mar 2024 16:44:00 +0000

One of the mean tricks of Father Time is he arms us with useful skills late in life that we needed when we were in our twenties and then laughs as we try to share that experience and wisdom with others. Pro tip: given the choice of discovering wisdom at full tuition or renting it […]

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CEO Shoptalk: Consistency

Big Red Car — Fri, 19 Jan 2024 19:43:42 +0000

If you are a founder or a CEO or both then you are running a complex organism that requires an abundance of skill and character in order to cast off the training wheels and compete in the marketplace, wherein the competition eats companies like yours for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and at the cocktail hour. It […]

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CEO Shoptalk: Learn To Say Goodbye

Big Red Car — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 18:54:10 +0000

If you aspire to be good at anything, to really excel — including as a CEO — then you better learn how to say “Goodbye, y’all,” as you will be saying it a lot. Think of excellence as being a mountain. As you near the top, the air is rarified, the pathway more treacherous, the […]

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CEO Shoptalk: The Limits of Servant Leadership

Big Red Car — Wed, 20 Dec 2023 13:08:50 +0000

One of the problems as a leader of a business enterprise with being a giver is how to set limits because, my friends, the takers have no limits. It became fashionable some time ago in the woke leadership press to describe the CEO of every company on the face of the earth as a “servant […]

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CEO Shoptalk: Self-Appraisal

Big Red Car — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 13:22:19 +0000

There is a chance that if you are the CEO of a small business, a privately held business — so, not a startup — or a startup that is initially self-funded and, thus, has no investors looking over your shoulder, you do not have a working Board of Directors and, thus, do not have a […]

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CEO Shoptalk: The Transition Point

Big Red Car — Sun, 17 Sep 2023 18:15:16 +0000

A few years ago, I was speaking to a totally inexperienced potential founder (brilliant young man, recent prestigious university grad, and a very likeable person) and I asked him as I always do, “Tell me how the process of standing up a startup works out in your mind?” It is always a good idea to […]

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CEO Shoptalk: Fear Of Failure

Big Red Car — Wed, 26 Jul 2023 22:38:27 +0000

Chatting the other day with a serial entrepreneur of some seasoning and success and we get on the subject of “fear of failure.” He had some interesting things to say amongst which are: “Everybody has some degree of fear of failure. Perfectly normal. It becomes a problem when it prevents you from going forward.” WTF […]

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CEO Shoptalk: Doing The Bloody Work

Big Red Car — Thu, 13 Jul 2023 23:00:35 +0000

Other day a CEO who had been a client pre-Pandemic calls me and wants to chat about the difficulties of getting folks back to the office who had been weaned from the office whilst working from home during the Pandemic and post-Pandemic, hardly a novel topic. As I often do, I explored the basis for […]

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CEO Shoptalk: HIRING >>> Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Experience, Common Sense, Character

Big Red Car — Thu, 29 Jun 2023 21:56:17 +0000

Not long ago I was discussing the hiring practices of a mature company I had first met as a startup when I advised its CEO. Early in their existence they had used a decent headhunter, but when they brought it in house, they stubbed their toes over process. The company has since successfully exited and […]

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