Category Archives: Hiring

07/13/23

CEO Shoptalk: Doing The Bloody Work

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 what was happening and I asked him about hiring, objective setting, performance appraisal, and compensation. We also discussed “quiet quitting” and its management equivalent: “quiet firing.” Continue reading →

03/17/19

Diversity

Today we talk diversity in a big sun ATX day — 65F with just a few clouds.

So, the issue of diversity keeps being bandied about. I was speaking to a person with whom I had worked as a CEO for about a dozen years.

We were trying to assess whether that company was “diverse.”

He said, “I don’t think what we did was impacted by some specific goal of creating diversity as that word is used today.”

I agreed with him, but I noted that we were extraordinarily diverse by the standards of today. Who knew? I was “woke” before woke was woke.

Continue reading →

04/10/17

Scaling Sales — One Index Card Shop Talk

Big Red Car here talking scaling sales on a lovely — no, cloudy and gray — day in the ATX. On Earth as it is in Texas, y’all!

So, the Big Red Car comes from the school of SALES SOLVES EVERYTHING which means that CEOs need to focus on sales from the first day they start.

Any argument there? I didn’t think so.

But, once you have some sales, how does the crafty CEO scale the sales operation?

Listen up, dear reader, as the Big Red Car gives you a single index card answer. Ready?

Continue reading →

04/16/15

Thoughts on Hiring

Big Red Car here in the beautiful ATX. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better, we have a day like today and a day like yesterday.

On Earth as it is in Texas!

Hiring is one of the things about building a great startup that is alluded to with a backhanded swipe of the founders’ hands.

It is an essential consideration. [Do tell, Big Red Car. Give us more, please.] Continue reading →