by Rick Erling The Harvard Business Review recently published a brutal fact: 70 percent of all change initiatives fail. Kaplan and Norton, originators of the Balanced Scorecard, further back this up: 90 percent of organizations failed to execute their strategies successfully. Strategy without execution is wasted thought. Great ideas are everywhere, but how often are [...]

By Kim Denney Can’t we just leave our most loyal employees alone even though we have to work around them sometimes? They’ve been with us since the beginning and they stayed with us when times were really bad. It’s OK if they can’t keep up. We can carry them for a while. It’s not right [...]

By Bob Barker “Gear up” means “to prepare for something that you have to do” or “to prepare someone else for something” (source: Cambridge Dictionary). To assess whether your company is prepared to grow, ask whether your management team has clear answers to 4 questions: 1. Does the company offer something special enough to compel [...]

AUSTIN TECH LEADERS ON THE LEADING EDGE OF MOBILE STRATEGY You’re ready to catch a plane for an out-of-town meeting, when you realize there’s not enough money in your checking account to get you through the next couple of days. While that might have been a headache a few years ago, now it’s a simple [...]

By Craig Casselberry As the Texas Legislature hits the halfway point of its 83rd biennial session, it’s timely to reflect on how our policy environment has supported the economic growth we have seen of late, and the role the next 70 days will play in positioning the state for the long-term. Today we are a [...]

WHAT’S THE BEST STRATEGY FOR DEVELOPING BUSINESS IN TEXAS? When it comes to job creation, Israel is outpacing the rest of the world. The country is near full employment and at the end of 2012, the economy had risen 3.5 percent, doubling the pace of its Organization for Economic Development (OECD) peers. In addition, Israel [...]

MUTUAL MOBILE CEO JOHN ARROW GETS TO THE POINT ON CREATING A LASTING MOBILE STRATEGY In classrooms across America, thousands of eighth, ninth and tenth grade students are using iPads. The tablet isn’t there to let them access games, or send text messages. They’re there to help the students boost their reading skills from a [...]

By Cynthia Stamer Since the Supreme Court upheld “pay or play” mandates of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) last June, businesses and employment-based group health plans have accepted the need to prepare for health care reform changes taking effect in 2014. Unfortunately, delays in the release of regulatory guidance have made it difficult for many [...]

By Chris Crawford, Brent Longnecker, and Todd Henke A New York Times article titled “CEOs and the Pay-‘Em-or-Lose-‘Em Myth” published on September 22, 2012 has received a lot of attention and discussion beyond its publication date. The article draws two interesting conclusions from the research conducted by two professors at the University of Delaware’s Weinberg [...]

CEOs, THE 411 STRAIGHT FROM THE DATA GEEKS THEMSELVES It’s hard to read a business publication these days and not come across an article about big data. It’s the hot buzzword du jour, and depending upon the source, can be regarded as the “next big thing,” or an overhyped gimmick, or a company’s key to having [...]

HOW TO USE STRATEGY, FRUGALITY & INNOVATION AS BUILDING BLOCKS TO GROWTH CEO Roundtable participants: Karl Scheible, President, Market Sense, a sales force development company. Bob Fabbio, CEO, WhiteGlove Health, providing health solutions to employers. Leon Chen, CEO, Tiff’s Treats, delivering warm cookies to 11 locations in Austin, Dallas & Houston. Dan Graham, CEO, BuildASign, [...]

Jim Russell is an economic geographer. The job description of an economic geographer is not exactly part of the mainstream lexicon – economic geographers study the relationship between the economy and the movement of people. In San Antonio, economic geography means the relationship between economic growth and the recent in-migration of college educated people holding [...]

PROS CEO ANDRES REINER PULLS BACK THE BIG DATA CURTAIN AND REVEALS HOW YOU CAN OUTPERFORM YOUR COMPETITION The movie “Moneyball” is the saga of Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane, who relied on Sabremetrics, detailed statistical information about players, to build his team. In one scene in the movie, actor Jonah Hill, who plays [...]

LEADERSHIP INSIGHT AND WISDOM FROM OUR COVER CEOS Q: How can a leader develop trust in his/her employees? A: Doing what you said you are going to do is probably the single most important tenet of trust. This principle, while obvious to understand, is not always easy to comply. Business conditions change, circumstances evolve, and [...]

LEADERSHIP INSIGHT AND WISDOM FROM OUR COVER CEOS Q: What role does creating a work environment play in leadership? A: We spend most of our waking time at work, so it is incredibly important that a leader focuses on creating a great work environment. Simply put, you want to shape an environment that brings out [...]

WHAT’S IN STORE FOR 2013? Deal making. Access to capital. Financial risk management. What’s coming in 2013? At a Texas CEO Magazine Enlightened Speakers Series event in Houston, two leading Texas bankers, Kay St. John, Texas President of BB&T and Downey Bridgwater, Houston President of Comerica, offered their view of the coming year. “Companies are [...]

THE U.S. AND TEXAS – A TALE OF TWO ECONOMIES “All of you remember your macro-economics class from college, right?” asked Tom Gilligan, economist and Dean of the McCombs School of Business at UT while addressing the room at the October Texas CEO Speaker Series event in Austin. “It’s GDP = consumption + business investment [...]

HOW TO CREATE, MAINTAIN & LEAD  HIGH-PERFORMANCE EXECUTIVE TEAMS Executive Roundtable Attendees: Mark Finger, VP, Human Resources, National Instruments has 6,500 employees in 52 countries employed in high tech. NI makes computers turn into diagnostic instruments. Drew Morton, VP, Chief Human Resources Officer, Hanger, Inc. was founded in 1861 by the first amputee of the [...]

TD INDUSTRIES CHAIRMAN JACK LOWE JR. EXPLAINS HOW TRUST & ACCOUNTABILITY ARE ESSENTIAL BUILDING BLOCKS FOR SUCCESS What do these Texas-based companies have in common? USAA, NuStar Energy, The Container Store, Men’s Wearhouse, Whole Foods, National Instruments, Rackspace, and TDIndustries? They’re all on the Fortune magazine list of “100 Best Companies to Work For.” For [...]