CEO skills – The Musings of the Big Red Car

THE Secret to Success

Big Red Car — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 13:47:28 +0000

Sorry for the clickbait title, but a chap called me and wanted my five keys to success for a CEO which got me thinking. He was writing an article and wanted to hear a lot of voices. I fear I ultimately disappointed the old boy as I did not agree it could be limited to […]

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CEO Shoptalk – Signal V Noise In A Hurry

Big Red Car — Thu, 04 Nov 2021 16:18:30 +0000

The only real equality in the world is time. We each get 24 hours a day. The rest of equality notions are lies, headfakes, just opiates for the masses — except for time. Time is an absolute and nobody gets one more minute in an hour than all of us do. When it comes to […]

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The Common Touch And Other Real World Issues

Big Red Car — Wed, 27 Oct 2021 14:58:53 +0000

Eight years ago, I wrote a blog post entitled: “Tone And The Common Touch (5-8-2013)” wherein I laid out case for ensuring that your — assuming you to be a CEO or C-suite denizen — tone and the way you dealt with your subordinates was a critical element in how they perceived you and, thus, […]

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CEO Shoptalk — Persuasion

Big Red Car — Sun, 24 Oct 2021 16:11:45 +0000

If you are a CEO, a manager, a leader you will of necessity order persons who are your subordinates to do things that need to be done. It is the nature of a senior-subordinate relationship, an employer-employee relationship. It is an every day action in the workplace. How can you ensure that these things you […]

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CEO Shoptalk — Not Cleared In Hot

Big Red Car — Tue, 12 Oct 2021 19:45:22 +0000

When you are calling in CAS (close air support — might be Snakes, Warthogs, fast movers, Puff the Magic Dragon — I know, dating myself) you will tell the flyboys they are “cleared hot” meaning they can bring their special brand of firepower and turn it loose on the target and that the friendlies are […]

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CEO Shoptalk – Executive Decision-making

Big Red Car — Mon, 23 Aug 2021 17:31:01 +0000

One of the things that strikes new CEOs is how bloody many decisions there are to make to run a startup and a fledgling business to say nothing of one that survives the trip from the cradle to the marketplace. I have read that a CEO makes more decisions in a day than CEOs did […]

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CEO Shoptalk — All Risk Is Not Created Equal

Big Red Car — Sun, 27 Sep 2020 17:55:04 +0000

If you are an entrepreneur, founder, CEO, you swim in a sea of risk, alternating amongst the butterfly, the backstroke, the breaststroke, and the crawl. You must do it all. In the early days, you are a minnow (or a little mullet if you are feeling salty) and the dangerous waters of startup land are […]

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Accounting — That Bedeviling Black Art

Big Red Car — Thu, 24 Sep 2020 23:11:03 +0000

I took a few accounting courses in grad school. I once knew my debits versus my credits. Knew all about original issue discounts, goodwill impairment, and other such trivia. Knew GAAP and FASB. Just showing off now. I ran businesses for 33 years. I needed to know more about accounting so I hired good accountants, […]

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Performance Appraisal As Inspiration And Motivation

Big Red Car — Fri, 21 Aug 2020 19:50:03 +0000

Performance appraisal in small to medium companies (including startups) is one of those things that CEOs equate to going to the dentist. Not only do they not like it, they are not good at it. There are a lot of very odd ideas at play here in the performance appraisal business — 360 degree appraisals […]

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Becoming Comfortable With Discomfort

Big Red Car — Sun, 16 Aug 2020 22:41:56 +0000

I get a lot of calls from people who I can tell are uncomfortable with whatever they have called me to discuss. I can feel the vibration coming down the air waves. A year ago, I ended a chat with a client and he said, “I constantly feel uncomfortable in my role as the CEO […]

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