Q1 Capital Partners

Too many Canadian technology firms are seeing an early demise because they lack the business skills to turn innovative ideas into marketplace success stories, according to a study released Wednesday.

In connection with the incorporation of your new business, this memorandum highlights a number of critical issues for you to consider with your legal, accounting and other professional advisors.....

In today’s volatile market environment, the strategic challenges for leaders have become more pronounced than ever. Of course, there are no quick-fix formulas that insure competitive advantage, however tantalizing that prospect might be. Recently, I had to gently admonish a persistent client, “It sounds like you’re seeking a precise algorithm that will guarantee earnings growth”. To his credit, he laughed.

I think we can agree that we are currently in a period of economic malaise. Most observers and analysts, like myself, believe that these difficult times are not a precursor to something gloomier, like a full-blown recession or even worse. The economy is basically sound, most established business organizations can boast reasonably solid fundamentals, and within the next 1-2 years (some say sooner), the market will be picking up again, full speed ahead.

One of the biggest dilemmas for leaders is how much data they need to gather before making a decision. We know the dangers of "analysis paralysis" that mark risk-averse cultures (one client told me that his company was so risk-averse that "we study a good idea until it becomes a bad idea.") On the other hand, we also know the dangers of premature decisions that can lead to sloppy execution and catastrophic consequences. So what’s a leader to do?

When I started public speaking in about 1986, I was deathly afraid of public speaking--for one thing, working for the division run by Steve Jobs was hugely intimidating: How could you possibly compete with Steve? It's taken me twenty years to get comfortable at it. I hope that many of you are called upon to give speeches--it's the closest thing to being a professional athlete that many of us will achieve. The purpose of this blog entry is to help you give great speeches.

We’ve made strategy far more complicated than it needs to be. Smart people with advanced degrees and high salaries generate elaborate documents containing complex analysis, algorithms, heuristics, scenarios, and projections – which seldom yield competitive advantage. In fact, more than 50% of the 1980 Fortune 500 companies – each having cultivated elegant, complex strategic plans – no longer exist. And literally 60-80% of megamergers – with strategies of impeccable depth, logic and financial wizardry – have been empirically shown to diminish shareholder value.

In troubled times a business needs enduring values, the best talent and an ability to 'zoom out' and see past the chaos in front of it.

"People remember people who remember them." (Marshall Field)