Has Your Organization Adopted The Weissman Principle?

By Bob Weissman
Former Chairman & CEO of Dun & Bradstreet

Few people will recognize the name Laurence J. Peter, but almost everyone has heard of his now famous Peter Principle.

He became widely famous in 1968, on the publication of The Peter Principle, in which he states:  “In a hierarchy every employee tends to rise to his level of

How Do We End the Gender Gap?

Every day you can find a new article or interview questioning whether a man or a woman makes a better leader. At the end of the article, all that is left is one more dagger for a person to throw at the opposite sex.

The discussion of who is better is a definite way to waste a person’s brain cells. The truth is that not all

What Is a Customer Worth?

By Bob Weissman
Former Chairman & CEO of Dun & Bradstreet

I was only out of business school for a few months when I learned a fundamental lesson: How to think about the value of a customer.

I had joined a consumer products company that sold liquid household cleaner, and they had just come up with a terrific promotional idea – offering the cleaner in a glass, early American flask with images of Washington, the colonial flag, etc., pressed in the sides. The flasks came in several colors, and there were color striations and bubbles just like in real antique glass.

It was a great idea, that is – until it was discovered that the amber flasks were

The Top 2 Reasons People Are Not Successful

On the surface, there seems to be many reasons people fail. In fact, several books can be written on the subject. However, when you distill those reasons, you are, in reality, left with two. I say with confidence that most people innately know this. Yet, they spend many hours figuring out ways to disguise this intuition with excuses.

From experts in psychology to the bus boy in a restaurant, you hear intellectual explanations about fear of failure. While this assessment is interestingly close, it

A Conversation with Henry Kravis

Re: A Conversation with Henry Kravis

On November 5, 2013, the Board of Veteran CEOs will host a Breakfast Forum featuring private equity pioneer and legendary CEO, Henry Kravis, of KKR. Mr. Kravis will be the featured speaker for this exclusive CEO breakfast. This invitation-only event is limited to former CEOs of Fortune 1000 corporations and sitting CEOs of mid-cap companies. In an interview format, Mr. Kravis will discuss

How Do Businesses Thrive in New Economic Conditions?

In a previous article, I discussed a new economic reality and what companies can do to preserve jobs in a down economy. As I continue addressing this issue with former CEOs, I find myself peeling the subject in layers as though peeling an onion.

As I have stated in the past, it is easy to layoff people or close manufacturing plants when the economy slows. It seems our business schools have not considered another possibility and we are perpetually stuck with laying people off to preserve profits.

At the same time, when you examine closely, you see this method is extremely

Henry Ford Believed There Is More to You Than You Know

“There isn’t a person anywhere who isn’t capable of doing more than he thinks he can.”  ~ Henry Ford

If you lived for 1000 years, you still would not know your limits. Each day and year you live, you learn more about yourself and what’s possible. Yet, somehow the word “can’t” seems to work its way into your vocabulary.

What’s the cure for the pontificators of “I can’t”? If you

Anais Nin Quotes on Why We See the World the Way We See It

We don’t see things as they are, we see them as we are.  ~ Anais Nin

In general, who we are reflects the environment in which we were raised. Who we become is a matter of choice.

Most of us believe we are who we are by choice. However, our environment has