In her thought-provoking book The Crossroads of Should and Must, author Elle Luna says “Should is how other people want us to live our lives. Must is different. Unlike Should, Must doesn’t accept compromises. To choose Must is to say yes to hard work and constant effort.” Having served 19 years in corporate financial management...

70% of America’s 20 million small businesses will transition leadership in the next 10 years.
 Transition is change. The 3-Steps to successful change are: Step 1. Dissatisfaction with the status quo. Sept 2. Awareness of a better way. Step 3. Belief you can successfully implement and sustain the better way. Top 10 Signs I’ve seen...

Most firms benefit from Activity Based Costing, yet 90 percent of companies studied abandon their ABC systems. This alarming dropout rate is one of the findings published Summer 2001 by Dr. Annie McGowan of Texas A&M University. Her research paper titled “Activity-Based Change Management: A Literature Review” states, “Although activity-based costing models often reveal new...

My exercise program this year has been limited to “pushing the envelope”, “skipping out on housework” and “leaping to conclusions”. Then mid-year, my father had triple bypass open-heart surgery. His operation served as a stark reminder that I only get one body, so I had better take care of it. To begin my process of...

I have been called many names during my life. I was called “Beancounter” at Johnson & Johnson because of my pursuit of accounting preciseness. Later in my career, a Motorola VP of Manufacturing nicknamed me “Herbie”, one of the characters in the popular book THE GOAL. The VP was accusing me and the cost system as...