What Cash Flow Can Tell You Inadequate cash flow is like Kryptonite was to Superman; without cash your business will suffer and eventually die. Yet most business owners I meet are not tracking their cash flow. They look at their P&L and balance sheet, but they do not conduct… Read More »
Learning the Language of Business
Learning the Language of Business I was recently sitting at the chef’s counter of my favorite restaurant, the Hairy Lobster, watching the chef and sous chefs work their magic to produce what I consider the best food in Portland, I was thinking about mastery and the language required to achieve it. These chefs have learned… Read More »
Are You Feeling Lucky?
Improve Your Odds of Success When things don’t go as we like, it’s easy to blame bad luck—it spares us from blaming ourselves! But a recent Wall Street Journal article* calls that idea into question. The writers, Janice Kaplan and Barnaby Marsh, assert that luck is a combination of random chance, talent, and hard work…. Read More »
Developing a Gratitude Framework
Developing an Attitude of Gratitude “Gratitude can be cultivated at any age,” said Jennifer Breheny Wallace in a recent Wall Street Journal article.* The author cited a 2012 national online poll of 2000 adults, which found that 59 percent of those surveyed thought that most people today are less likely to have an attitude of… Read More »
Gary Furr Consulting—The Most Helpful Family Business Professional
Gary Furr Consulting—The Most Helpful Family Business Professional At the November 2017 Excellence in Family Business Awards presented at the Austin Family Business Program, a part of Oregon State University, our client The Higher Taste, a vegan and vegetarian food processor, was awarded the Generational Development Award. In… Read More »
Make 2018 Your Best Year Ever
Make 2018 YOUR BEST YEAR EVER! As you approach a New Year, it is a good time to reflect on 2017 and ask yourself some serious questions in order to make 2018 your best year ever. This will lay… Read More »
7 Steps to Accelerated Business Growth: Step 2 – Communication
I have discovered that in many organizations, the leadership knows where they’re going, but the employees do not. When direction and vision are not communicated effectively, employees tend to figure it out themselves, and they may start pulling in directions that leadership or ownership doesn’t want to go….Read more »
Something to Talk About
Something to Talk About Do you enjoy making recommendations? On my last trip to Shanghai, I went out to dinner with a group of expats to a restaurant called People 7. The person who made the reservation was given a two-digit code: 64. When we approached the restaurant, all we could see was a concrete… Read More »
Winning Like a Formula One Team
WINNING LIKE A FORMULA ONE TEAM In April I was invited to attend the Formula One Races in Shanghai with a group of expats. I had planned to be in China to continue work on a project there, so attending the races came at just the right time. In preparation for the race I watched… Read More »
Albert Einstein 2
ALBERT EINSTEIN 2 In my last blog post I discussed a quote that has been attributed to Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”… Read More »