Peer Power Blog

The idea for this blog came from something that came across my desk and seemed worthy of sharing.  I spend a lot of time training entrepreneurs to transition to leaders – to move from founder to CEO.  That is a tough change to make.  There are parts of being the creator of a company that becomes part of us.  So growing from that role, to a role viewed as more stale and less fun is a challenge. Founders are amazing.  They make the world go round.  They build value and create jobs . They are the people who see, and then create, the future. As you would expect, personal traits and business leadership traits are intertwined.  The most common traits that I see in the best entrepreneurs are: ... Continue reading

This past week at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference I had the opportunity to hear Sir Richard Branson as the guest keynote speaker.  He shared some of his success and wisdom with the audience – and I found it to be very interesting and motivating.  One of the key statements he made involved his approach to life: “Screw it, let’s do it”.  He is all about taking risk (calculated and controlled) but taking action.  Far too often we sit back thinking about ideas rather than getting after it and making things happen.  He also shared his most important life lesson -- "Forgive your enemies, the world is too small to hang on to the past”.  That is fabulous wisdom.  Far too many people spen... Continue reading

HTG peer groups have been focused on best practice sharing since the first group was founded back in 2000. Those learning’s have helped numerous companies grow and become more successful in their markets. But over time we noticed that the value of best practice sharing seemed to diminish. Why? Ron Ashkenas wrote a great post on “Why Best Practices Are Hard to Practice” on Harvard Business Review online that explains some of the issues we found. Here are some excerpts from his excellent article:“It would be easy to say that processes and tools cannot be picked up and moved from one organization to another. After all, each organization is unique — with different markets, commercial forces, str... Continue reading

Colin Powell said this: "When we are debating an issue, loyalty means giving me your honest opinion, whether you think I'll like it or not. Disagreement, at this stage, stimulates me. But once a decision has been made, the debate ends. From that point on, loyalty means executing the decision as if it were your own". I love these words. It captures the way people should live life. Debate the issues while the decision is under consideration, but once made, it all comes down to execution. That fits in with my favorite all time quote from Thomas Edision: "Vision without execution is hallucination". At the end of the day - it is about getting things done not thinking about what could be or de... Continue reading

Another year is ending but this is a rather important end of the year as it also is the end of a decade. Hard to believe we are already finishing the first ten years of the 21st century. It seems like Y2K days were only a short time ago, but here we are ready to enter the next decade. But before we go, it is time to stop and take advantage of the two opportunities that transition brings.First we need to review the past year and evaluate our performance. I would also say we should take a little extra time and review the past decade. That will be challenging if you are anything like me and can hardly remember what you did last hour let alone over the course of the last 10 years. But looking ba... Continue reading