ARTICLES BY DR. ANDY NEILLIE, CSP

Stacy’s time as a manager at the firm was coming to an end. She had started strong – for the first two years, her leadership of her team seemed to work well. They regularly met and even exceeded their goals. Team morale seemed strong. Innovation and energy were evident. Unfortunately, even early on there were indications that she wasn’t being the leader her team needed. Her staff turnover was higher than the other managers and even the people who stayed weren’t being promoted;…

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He worked for the firm for several years.  He was sharp, hard-working and an inspiring leader.  His team members were challenged to bring their best for him and our company, and they did a great job under him.

His fatal flaw: he couldn’t work well alongside and under other leaders.  He created and fostered an “us-vs-them” mentality.  After a while, despite his great strengths, his liabilities became too great.  He was pulling a different direction than the rest of the leadership team,

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What do you wish your team members were more passionate about?  Serving customers? Growing the organization?  Impacting their world?   According to Bill Hybels, “Vision is a picture of the future that produces passion in people.”  If we want our people to have passion, we need to have vision.  What are you casting vision about?  How are you doing so?

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In the past seven years, we’ve built a sustainable multi-million-dollar franchise business. But not really. In the first two years, we made no money. (That’s not exactly true; I think our bookkeeper told me we made $17,000 our first 24 months in business.  Net. Total. Two highly motivated and relatively competent people hard at work and we weren’t making it. Definitely not enough to cover a mortgage. And car payments. And groceries.  You get the point.  

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