About seven years ago we were putting the finishing touches on a new vision for Gibson. Like everyone else, we were emerging from the fog of the Great Recession. Even before the economic downturn we had misfired on a major multi-year plan. To say we were a little gun-shy about verbalizing some new grandiose plan would be an understatement.

Yet aiming for something that seemed out of reach to most of us was exactly what we needed. It pushed us to be better, to be more. We had a financial target in mind that would have us more than doubling in size over the next decade. From a math standpoint, while not a given, it was certainly achievable. We needed to average about 7 to 8% net growth per year. But after years of economic fear, this goal caused much angst among our management team. We wondered if we could really afford to fail again in the eyes of our employees. To our fragile team, to double in size seemed unthinkable.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Nick Smarrelli, CEO of GadellNet. We hope you enjoy Nick’s wisdom and perspective.

When I joined the team at GadellNet, one of the first things I noticed was what it felt like to work at GadellNet. We were small then, less than five people, and it truly felt like family. The culture was naturally customer-centric, helpful, transparent, and flexible. What I saw was a company about to explode, and I didn’t want to lose the awesome culture that was already in place.

We spent 9 exhausting months of trial-and-error to identify our core values. What made us different? How can we use this to weed out those that don’t fit our culture? Was it clear enough to help make hiring/firing decisions? Was it inspiring? How did it play into our commitment to the community, our employees and our clients? Was it memorable? We didn’t want to have core values that were trite, rather, something that served as the foundation for every decision made as a company.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Chris Kennedy, President, CEO of Hartson-Kennedy Cabinet Top Co., Inc. We hope you enjoy Chris’s wisdom and perspective.

In thinking about some of the experiences I’ve encountered running a manufacturing business for 30+ years, there is one recurring theme that jumps out at me. It is something I think has not only been beneficial to our company, but enjoyable and rewarding to me personally as well, and that is CARING.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Dean Breyley, Certified EOS Implementer, entrepreneur, and speaker. We hope you enjoy Dean’s wisdom and perspective.

Bottlenecked, gridlocked, congested – there are lots of ways to describe how it feels when a business gets stuck. We’ve all been there at some point in our work, and once you realize you are there, you immediately start searching for ways to get ‘un-stuck.’

Finding an effective solution that truly gets the business back flowing and growing can feel like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack. All the while, the issues caused by the bottleneck continue to pile up and snowball. Results slow down, growth starts to halt, errors increase, and people get frustrated. What got you where you are today no longer seems to work.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Barbara Khozam, internationally recognized customer service speaker and trainer. We hope you enjoy Barbara’s wisdom and perspective.

Negativity has always been easier to pass along than positivity. This is largely due to our antiquated human nature of day-to-day survival against the world around us. Our existence depended, historically, on knowing where dangers could be found. So passing on this negative knowledge was essential to our lives. However, we no longer live in such an era. But, as human citizens of a modern world, why not make the conscious decision to make positivity contagious?

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Mike Cahill, President of Banking Services at Ruoff Home Mortgage. We hope you enjoy Mike’s wisdom and perspective.

By chance, I was visiting with a former coworker the other day and two things popped up. One, I saw a copy of the book The Energy Bus on a desk in the office. Two, the person I was talking to shared how a coworker always had something negative or cutting to say. There was never anything positive forthcoming from them. This coworker could not seem to see this about themselves.

In August of 2009, I was named President of Gibson. The fourth one in our entire history. Most of you remember what it was like in our country back in 2009-10. "The Great Recession" was crippling our economy. Companies were laying off large chunks of their workforce or closing their doors entirely.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger René  Boer,  a Certified Implementer of EOS. We hope you enjoy René's wisdom and perspective.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Ron Kitchens, Chief Executive Officer at Southwest Michigan First. We hope you enjoy Ron’s wisdom and perspective.

When hiring new team members, typical organizations focus on resumes and references. Great organizations, on the other hand, focus on selecting the best people based on talent, strengths, and fit. It may be faster to scan credentials and hire based on pieces of paper, but I guarantee that a strategic approach will lead to fewer regrets in the future. Simply put, we as leaders need to know what to look for and how to find it.

Today we’re sharing insight from guest blogger Scott Downes, founder and principal of Thomas LLC, an independent communications consultant. We hope you enjoy Scott’s wisdom and perspective.

As I was partaking in the annual holiday known as “Shark Week”, I thought a recent re-watching of the original summer blockbuster Jaws might provide a worthy metaphor to explore some leadership lessons. Chief Brody, Hooper, Mayor Vaughn, and that old salty dog Quint provide so many pearls of wisdom throughout the movie that I’m sure we could all learn from.