Preface: Peter F. Drucker in “The Daily Drucker” say society’s next corporations will be simply top management. Everything else will be outsourced. So what does top management do? They focus on the organizations values, mission and vision, solely.  Entrepreneurship — It is defined as the pursuit of [business] opportunity regardless of the resources you currently control. Hinged to every successfully managed and developing entrepreneurial activity is a business plan. Entrepreneurship is an activity or behavior as opposed to a person or ideology as described from Harvard Business School; and those activities or behaviors all begin the same way — with a vision.  It all starts with a vision. A [business] vision is about articulating a problem, or process improvement, that creates a business opportunity with a solution. The vision leads to a mission, and the mission results in action. To succeed in business, it helps to get right early on to succeed i) the leadership, ii) the model, iii) the generation of opportunity. To start with the problem, you must assess why it is a problem likely to result in a value driving opportunity, e.g. hunger is a problem, and what opportunity result from solving a hunger problem? [consider the brand recognition of fast food franchises, Darden’s suite, and many more]. Next, in developing vision, what is the scale of the problem or process, and what are root causes? Because the opportunity is the need for a solution from a problem or process improvement. The vision development looks like this — whose tried it before, and what will the world like after the problem is solved? That is the beginning of the vision – envisioning the world after the problem is solved or process improved, e.g. have your every considered a world without hunger? In this blogging series, we would like…

Preface: Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t —  is a book of intellectual adventure to discover what it takes to turn a good business into a great business. It is said the best students are those are never quite sure if they should believe their professors. The book provides an explicit narrative on data of great companies. You’re the judge and the jury. Let the data speak for itself. Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. A Book Report Written to At-Work Entrepreneurs [Segment II] “You can accomplish anything in life, provided you don’t mind who gets the credit”  Harry Truman. Darwin E. Smith chief executive officer of the paper company Kimberly-Clark in the 1970’s was a mild mannered lawyer. Smith’s favorite company was electricians and plumbers and vacation’s were a time to dig holes with his backhoe and move rocks on his Wisconsin farm. When an WSJ journalist ask him about his management style his answer was simple – “Eccentric.” Smith met obstacles with the same resolute will as Sophia Marie Campa-Peters. An aside: Nine year old Sophia Marie Campa-Peters is eating pizza again, after a successful highly risky brain surgery in January. While doctors were pessimistic about Sophia’s ability to walk, her response was “If you’re only going to talk about what I can’t do, then in don’t want to hear it. Just let me try to walk.” Her doctors are now dumbfounded. Campa-Peters hoped to get 10,000 people praying for her on the day of her surgery January 26th. Interestingly, among the those who cared about Sophia, President Trump was one of those praying that day, and his words to Sophia are something every entrepreneur should keep in mind “Never give up, keep inspiring us…

Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. Author: Jim Collins A Book Report Written for At-Work Entrepreneurs.  Preface: Good to Great is a book of intellectual adventure to discover what it takes to turn a good business into a great business. It is said the best students are those are never quite sure if they should believe their professors. The book provides an explicit narrative on data of great companies. You’re the judge and the jury. Let the data speak for itself. Good to Great – Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Others Don’t. A Book Report Written for at-work Entrepreneurs Great is Great; Great is not Good. Good is the enemy of Great. Jim succinctly communicates why satisfaction with good business is the reason there is an absence of great business. Many companies are very good, and they are happy with that. That is the main reason they never become great? How do jump from good, and get to great? The project of studying good to great companies in the book spans more than 10.5 years of effort, and the reading of 6000 articles and 384 million bytes of data. The first data point of relevancy is that great CEO’s of companies came from inside the company 90% of the time. They were home grown; not a paid celebrity. In addition, compensation to corporate performance was not a lead factor of the great CEOs. Great companies invest more time in long-range strategic planning than good companies. They think in-depth through what tasks do not create value and subsequently stop doing those tasks. They work on not only what actions propel the business towards greatness, but what equally what actions detract from greatness as a company. The data indicates that technology alone does…

Preface: Listen to concise Phil talk plainly about the four most important financial metrics —  1.0 Liquidity, 2.0 Earnings Growth, 3.0 Return on Assets 4.0 Cash Flow Statements. Are the cash flows real? Are cash levels conservative? Are earnings trends climbing? Discover the foundational principles that report integral financial metrics.