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The Critical Importance of Principles in Business

One of the most important things any business leader can do for their business longevity, is to establish the principles by which they and their business will operate.

These principles form the foundation on which trust and relationships are built with all of the stakeholders of the business; shareholders, employees, customers, and suppliers.

Berkshire Hathaway is an example of a highly successful business from pretty much all perspectives. They are a solid company with decades of successful and profitable operations.

In 1983, Warren Buffett established 13 principles that defined how Berkshire Hathaway was to operate. He first published these in what he called Berkshire’s “An Owner’s Manual.” These 13 ideologies are still valid today at Berkshire and followed closely in all the business that they conduct.

Many of these are directly applicable to any business. We can all benefit from reviewing them and perhaps implementing them in our own businesses!

Berkshire’s “An Owners Manual”

I have highlighted seven of the thirteen principles below:

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Why “Excellence” is the Next Five Minutes

Is “excellence” a word that would describe everything you or your business does or produces? If not, you are in danger of becoming a commodity, being stuck in the race to the bottom, and going extinct!

In fact, Tom Peters, in his new book The Excellence Dividend, believes that a mindset of excellence is the antidote to job automation and product “Commodityville”.

Early in my career there was an incident in our office when one of the junior engineers handed a proposal to his manager for a final review before sending the proposal to the customer. The manager basically came unglued and ripped apart the junior engineer after he found a spelling mistake . . . in the client’s name!

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Friend of a Friend

Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career

The book review for this week is Friend of a Friend by David Burkus.

Burkus takes the reader through the myths, science, and art of networking. He uses research and studies backed up by solid anecdotal evidence to come to his conclusions. His underlying premise is that: “we are not growing or creating a network . . . we already exist inside of a network.” The people that succeed are those who recognize this and learn to see and navigate their network the best. We can then supercharge our network by bridging the gap between multiple groups or networks of people who don’t generally connect.

My takeaway from this book is that the most successful individuals oscillate between working with a variety of teams and acting as a bridge between their primary team or elsewhere in the organization or network. Finally, remember that “YOUR FRIEND OF A FRIEND IS YOUR FUTURE!”

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Are You Struggling To Get A Grasp On Your Project?

I will start this post with a warning . . . this article focuses on project management!

Now that I have given you “fair warning,” how many project or portfolio managers struggle to get a grasp on the key indicators for their projects? These indicators give advance warning of pending problems or a heads up on an opportunity that you don’t want to miss.

There is so much information coming from so many directions it can be confusing and overwhelming. Yet we all know that if we don’t understand where our projects are at, it is next to impossible to finish them successfully!

While I was a business executive running a large engineering company, I sat through countless project reviews in many different countries all over the world. Through the experience I gained in these reviews, I was able to develop a one-page  summary that succinctly shows the status of a project.

For the purposes of this post, I will call it the Financial Update Tool. However, this report goes so much deeper than a financial report. The finances can be a gateway into the rest of the project so this report must be coupled with “common project sense” to drill down and ask some tough operational questions. See this post for more details on great questions for your projects.

So what does the Financial Update Tool look like?

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How To Create A Powerful Newsletter And Why You Should Care

If your business does not issue a monthly newsletter, you are missing out on one of the easiest and most powerful ways to communicate to your employees!

A properly written newsletter can deliver timely and valuable information to employees in a consistent way that is hard to match with other types of media.

I have seen many examples of company newsletters over the years, from large oil companies to small engineering firms . . . from simple one pagers to monstrous 20+ pagers!

My favorite newsletter was one I received at a small employee owned organization. Although this one was not monthly, it did provide a great update on the company health, the money we were making, and where the business leaders thought we were headed.

What does a great newsletter look like and what are the benefits?