We are smack dab in the middle of tax season with only a couple of weeks left before the individual filing deadline. That means S corporation business owners all over the country are wringing their hands, hoping for a great March and April to pay their tax bill. This annual ritual of scrounging for cash to pay last year’s taxes is a huge distraction for businesses. And it leads to all kinds of shenanigans.

There is a famous quote ascribed to Henry Ford.

"Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it."

I was curious so I went looking for the source. The quote is from an article Ford wrote for the April 1928 issue of The Forum. I would encourage you to read it. Apart from his thoughts on "thinking" it is worth the read to see how closely the issues and debates of his day match our own. You can view page images of the original periodical here. But back to the quote.

Last week I talked about the difference between mission, vision and values. Of the three, we always start with vision. And we do so for purely practical purposes. If a business doesn’t know what it wants to accomplish it is impossible to be intentional about achieving it.

But vision statements can be tricky things to write. Everyone seems to have a different opinion about what they should cover or how inspiring their prose should be.

I was in a meeting the other day and the guy next to me, who runs a very successful company, said "you know, I've just never taken the time to do the mission statement. I know I should, but I don't quite know what to do."

Mission, vision and values are great tools for communicating what you are about and helping other people understand what you are trying to accomplish. Any business that struggles with communication should start here. It will make a big difference in how you talk with employees, customers, contractors and everyone else you do business with.

In today's video I share some of my thoughts on todo lists and why I think shared lists are a bad idea. I want to cover that topic here and address what is sure to be an often raise objection to my point of view.

Shared todo lists are a bad idea because as a rule they allow those delegating tasks to abdicate two primary responsibilities of management.

I had been working with this client for over six months. Our relationship was solid. Appointments were upbeat and fun. By the end of a morning together we always accomplished a lot and went our separate ways feeling energized.

But as I sat at the conference table this morning all was not well. Over the preceding 13 weeks several major projects had failed to get done.

It was the middle of the day, and I was on another marathon conference call. These had become routine with this client. Two, three, four times a week, sometimes several times a day I was in the middle of strategizing and crisis management sessions. We were pitted against an adversary that would clearly do or say anything to tear us down. It was incredibly stressful.

When I was growing up there were few things worse than being called a sissy. Guys who complained about hard track workout were labeled sissies. Buddies who hesitated on the edge of the high dive were prodded over the edge with jeers of “don’t be a sissy.” Today I tell clients to stop being sissies when I can see they are just avoiding the hard work.

When managers complain about an employee's performance there are usually two possibilities. Either the employee is letting the manager down or the manager is letting the employee down. Everyone identifies with employees being the problem. Our tendency is to chalk up poor performance to incompetency or laziness. But knowledge workers need the right tools for the job just like everyone else.

There was a time when I turned my nose up at personal trainers and fitness coaches. After all, I was a standout athlete in high school. I went to college on a [very small] athletic scholarship. I had discipline and fortitude and know how in spades. Why in the world would I spend money on a personal trainer? But after turning forty I started to understand something. Discipline and know how don't count for much when weeks turn into months and months turn into years and your goals aren't any closer.

Working for my dad was, how shall I put this... challenging. And as "challenging" as it was for me I can imagine it was even more difficult for him. I was a bull headed 23 year old with definite ideas about how he should run his business. Nearly twenty years later my dad has grown six feet taller and immeasurably wiser. We no longer work together, but I recognize some of our struggles in the clients I work with today. Given my past working relationship with dad family businesses have a special place in my heart. And I see them struggle in ways unique to family businesses. Unless they deal with these issues the jobs of both family and non-family members are at risk.

Years ago I worked in a firm that had no culture. At least that is how I viewed it at the time. It was the middle of a .com boom and magazines like Wired and Business 2.0 talked incessantly about cultures of innovation, cultures of creativity, the culture of the new economy, etc. It was all good, and no one was talking about the darker side of corporate culture. Now the older, wiser me recognizes that in the void of intentional leadership I was experiencing a "default" culture.

Things that are technically possible are not always practically feasible. When I was a kid it was technically possible for me to build an electric door lock out of Legos. However, it was practically impossible since my sister would not stop kicking the door open long enough for me to complete it. I have experienced something similar in the virtual meeting space.

When companies want us to help them put together a strategic plan there are several areas we examine to see if they are ready. One of the biggest is technology. Today the effective use of technology is a table stake in the game of business growth. There are three areas I am primarily concerned with when evaluating a prospective client's use of technology.

A company's prior experience with strategic planning is an important piece of assessing their readiness to become a strategic planning client. The most basic question that can be asked is whether the company has any prior strategic planning experience or not.

I was talking with a new acquaintance this week and we were discussing whether or not he should start his own business. We discussed things like his dissatisfaction with the current situation, the steps that would be required to open his own shop, support from family members, how to keep work in check when it comes to a healthy marriage, and about half a dozen other things. In short, we talked a lot about his readiness to step out on his own.

I will be honest. I am not a big fan of SWOT analysis. But who could blame me? My first introduction to the tool was at a partner retreat. The scene was set. There were two flip charts arranged in the middle of a 3 sided sofa arena. Our facilitator's penmanship was flawless. We broke for coffee and snacks after an hour and started back in again with renewed enthusiasm. But no one knew why we were doing this.

In the course of helping companies with their strategic planning I have come to view the process in one of two ways. When putting together a strategic plan you are either removing roadblocks or building the road. These analogies might seem simplistic, but I think they are useful for a few reasons.

In the 18 years since James Collins and Jerry Porras coined the phrase Big Hairy Audacious Goal most people instantly recognize BHAG as that thing that sets the vision for the organization. BHAG’s are very helpful at keeping companies focused on the long term. They give context to strategic plans and help companies weed through strategies until they find the ones that align with the big picture. They inspire and guide at the same time. In many ways they are the starting point for developing a plan and the ending point when you reset the vision.

When I started a CPA firm years ago I leased space in a mid-rise office building. Every room in our space had big five foot high windows along the exterior wall. One day I picked up a pack of dry erase markers and instantly converted about 30 linear feet of window space into the largest whiteboard I had ever used. I was in love. Over the years clients learned to love the window whiteboards as much as I did. There were a lot of good ideas hatched on those windows. But we had to take pictures of them before it got dark or you couldn’t see what you had put up on the board.