Brandon W. Jones

The old saying, “Knowledge = Power” is more true now than ever.  In today’s economy, leaders everywhere  must know what is happening in their industry and the economy as a whole.  They must be up to date on trends and major changes coming.  If leadership fails to stay on top of the trends, they can lose speed with their competition and possibly even their relevance. 

Over the past few years, several companies have lost their relevancy because they failed to follow the trends of their industry and the economy.  They lost pace with their competitors and either went of business or changed ownership.  There are also a few companies that have fallen into this trap but have not gone out of business yet, but they are struggling to survive.  Some of the companies that fell into this trap are Blockbuster Video, Kodak, Circuit City, Mervyns, and Borders Books.  I will explain the downfall of just two:

Blockbuster Video has done a poor job of keeping up with the trends.  As a result, they are struggling to survive and have filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy.  Read More…

As leaders, it is essential that you emphasize the importance of good customer service.  As you emphasize it, you must also lead by example.  You must show your employees what it means to give good customer service.

Recently, I had an interesting experience with customer service.  My wife and I got the oil changed in our truck at Walmart.  Afterwards, I noticed a few small oil spots on the driveway from time to time.  I didn’t, however, see a significant amount of oil loss each time I checked the oil.  Once the truck hit 3,000 miles we took it in to get the oil changed.  We went to a local oil and lube shop and were told they wouldn’t change the oil because the pan was stripped.  They didn’t want to take any liability for changing the oil on the truck with a stripped oil pan.  That was very frustrating because we needed the truck to get around, but couldn’t get the oil changed without fixing the oil pan.  We also didn’t want to drive the truck too much without getting the oil changed because we didn’t want to go way over on miles.

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I read an article in the Wall Street Journal yesterday titled, “Where’s the Boss? Trapped in a Meeting” by Rachel Emma Silverman. The article talked about a study that was done on CEOs. London School of Economics and Harvard Business School did a study of over 500 CEOs from various companies around the world. The studies were done to see how they used their time. The results were tracked by the CEOs’ personal assistants for anything the CEO did for more than 15 minutes during the day. Some of the results were very interesting. The average tracked CEO worked 55 hours a week and spent 18 hours in meetings.

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