When to Judge a Turnaround, and When Not To

A turnaround deadline is not a date by which the business is fixed. It is a date by which whoever is funding the work expects to see evidence, and those two things get conflated so routinely that most people using the phrase could not tell you which one they mean. The...

Why Your 30-60-90 Plan Should Be Shorter

A 30-60-90 day plan is not a schedule. It is a commitment device, and almost every version circulating in leadership training is built as the wrong thing, which is why so many of them get written in week one, presented in week two, and never opened again. The...

The First 90 Days Guide for a VP of Ops

The job you were actually given Why the plant manager’s playbook fails at this altitude What should you measure first? Which sites are actually yours to fix? How do you tell a site problem from a portfolio problem? From diagnosis to action Days 1 to 30: the site...

I Just Inherited a Business. Now What?

Step 1. Establish what the business owes, and when Step 2. Establish what it is owed, and by whom Step 3. Find out who actually knows how things work Step 4. Read the customer concentration Step 5. Find the commitments that are not in the contracts Step 6. Say almost...