“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory.

Tactics without Strategy is the noise before defeat.”

Sun Tzu

“The Art of War”

Too Many Chihuahuas

Every C-Level executive frets over holding on to his or her “A-Players.” But according to executive recruiter, author and Vistage speaker Eric Herrenkohl, the real risk we take in keeping our “A” Players lies in not culling the herd of the C players we’ve allowed to walk our halls. Check out this short and compelling article from Eric in which he shares the folly of surrounding your “Great Danes” with “Chihuahuas.”  

BTW, if you haven’t read it,  Eric’s book,  ‘How to Hire “A” Players’ is a must read for any executive who wants innovative and effective strategies and tactics for recruiting “Great Danes.”

Are These Trends Your Friends?

Vistage “Blue Ocean Strategy speaker, Andrea Simon, is featured in this week’s Forbes Magazine. Forbes occasionally asks Andrea for her observations of what’s really happening in our society that every business will have to cope with. Take two minutes for her 2014 Update of Business Trends from the Trenches.  Are you aware of these… and if so, what’s your plan? 

Check out her website www.simonassociates.net  for a variety PDFs and videos that you may find helpful as you search for your “Blue Ocean”.

Econ Recon

Thawing Out the Plow Horse: Brian Wesbury has termed our slow but steady recovery a “plow horse economy.” He posits that the harsh winter held back economic activity that is now vigorously returning in terms of GDP and employment. Find out in his one page analysis why he thinks the plow horse economy is getting de-iced and why a sure rebound from the cold lies head.

What CEOs (and others) REALLY make: The media loves to throw around astronomical compensation stats for CEOs, forgetting to mention that such numbers are hardly representative of what most CEOs make and that the averages of CEO pay are comparable to what other professionals make whose pay ranges rarely make the news. Spend a few moments with Alan Beaulieu of ITR Economics examining CEO wages.