Studies have shown that for people to be happy and productive at work, they need to experience positive interactions (appreciation, praise) vs. negative (reprimands, criticism) with their manager in a ratio of at least 3:1.

Divide big teams into smaller ones aligned around projects, product lines, customer segments, geographical locations, etc., based on the idea of getting everyone in the organization into small teams and as close to his or her respective customers as possible.

If the daily huddle is so powerful, why do organizations start and then stop it? In a word, generalities! As teams tell stories and share information, it’s critical that they include specifics. We need to hear names, numbers, dates, issues, and concerns if our brain is going to make the kinds of connections that make this process powerful. For inst

By the time it reaches $50 million in revenue, an organization should have enough experience and a strong-enough position in the market to predict profitability accurately.

The Critical Number, like the rest of the organization’s strategy, cannot be set in isolation from the realities of the company and the marketplace. Employees and customers will think the senior team was smoking something if they come down from the mountaintop with “the tablets” pronouncing the latest strategic plan without having completed the nec

You, too, need a team of absolute specialists — chess pieces — to achieve your ambitious goals.

Repetition encompasses consistency. Finish what you start. Mean what you say. And don’t say one thing and do something else. Consistency is an important aspect of repetition.

This is why marketing is such a critical function to scaling up a business. The marketing team must be as actively involved in recruiting a steady stream of potential employees as it is in attracting potential customers, yet most organizations fail miserably in this area.

The two main arguments we hear for not meeting regularly, especially for the daily huddle: 1. We don’t have the time. 2. We see each other all day anyway.