‘Six Thinking Hats’ is a powerful technique that helps you look at important decisions from a number of different perspectives. It helps you make better decisions by forcing you to move outside your habitual ways o thinking. As such, it helps you understand the full complexity of the decision, and spot issues and opportunities to which you might otherwise be blind. (more…)

Inspirational quotes for entrepreneurs from the CenterNetwork’s guide. Selected by Simpleentrepreneur.com :

The highs are higher, the lows are lower. The key to success is to maintain balance and a level head through both.

— Alex Bard from goowy

Be ready to accept failure (9 out of 10 start ups fail).

— Alex Bard from goowy

Be ready to sacrifice: Building a product and company is a lot of hard work. The hardest part is not coming up with an idea or building the product, it’s staying committed enough to do it when you’re tired, or when the first major investor says no, or when you have to sacrifice a night out. If you can’t give up some of the things that you really care about right now, you will have a hard time sticking with your idea. (more…)

Eric Holt has been recruited as director of strategy by FineArt Inc., a regional glass manufacturer. Jack Derry, CEO of the company has hired Eric for its team building knowledge acquired in its previous job. The firm is about to be beaten by big players. These companies could eventually take over the company. Eric has been hired to build a team composed by six top level management people and to find a way to stay competitive against these bigger companies. So far the company has not used the team system very often. For the CEO the idea behind building the team is that the whole is greater than the sum of its part. (more…)

Here is what I learned from my Business Ethics class during my MBA at the University of Saint Thomas (MN, USA). I would like to thanks again my instructor Mrs Dawn Elm and my great classmates who taught me a lot.

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Do what you love. When you love your work, you become the best worker in the world.
Uri Geller - Best - Love - Work

A brand for a company is like a reputation for a person. You earn reputation by trying to do hard things well.
Jeff Bezos - Branding - Companies (more…)

The case:

Jack Emmons, CEO of Voici Brands, is visiting a Chinese factory that produces clothes for Marquise, one of Voici’s competitors. Marquise shrunk the time from fashion design to products arrivals in stores from 50 weeks to 60 days, boosting the bottom line by 20%. Marquise gained some profits by using cheaper Chinese labor, but the main source of higher profits was coming from the faster time to market. Voici is suffering from a too decentralized supply chain; each business inside the company has its own legacy, its own suppliers, and its own management. Jack Emmons is thinking about changing the supply chain. Margie Rosen is Voici’s director (more…)

During my class of ethics at the University of Saint Thomas (MN, USA), I was given the assignment of writing a professional oath. At the end of my MBA, this exercise made sense to me. It is a really a great tool that permits not to forget one’s values and principles. So here is the professional oath I’ve written: (more…)