Branding is a sham. At least what most people now call “branding.” Because the way most companies approach it, their “brand” is basically a magic trick. Like the entertainer on stage who uses fast-moving hands, pithy jokes and clever distractions to get you to look at what they want you to look at and ignore the stuff they don’t want you to see as they execute the trick.

Valuing all people is what matters, not the dogma that DEI has become.

Ask yourself: Is it worth it for me to give up a significant level of control over the business to get the benefits of accepting the investment cash?

If you’re in business – everyone with a job is – this hunger to learn and understand is priceless. Yet for too many people, the yearning for learning they had as a toddler is severely eroded by the time they are 35.

Every leader needs trusted, experienced advisors to help them navigate the relentless and high-stakes flow of critical decision points. Here are some important factors to consider when retaining outside advisors.

Brand can be meaningfully measured in countless ways. Companies should be willing to hold themselves accountable for how well their actual performance measures up to the things they claim when they write down brand attributes as well as missions, visions, values, positioning statements, taglines, and the like.

Knowing exactly who your biggest, most valuable clients or customers are is critical to long-term, sustained success. They have a huge impact on the company's revenue and should be treated specially because you cannot afford to lose them. It starts with diving into your data.

We live in a data-driven, quantitative world, like it or not.  But the qualitative side of life, sometimes dismissed as “squishy” or “soft,” still has a powerful role in business and public policy.

The search for the next leader of any organization is fraught with risks — all the more reason to get started now.