The Bad Year
Every firm that lasts has one. What determines whether it is survived is largely decided in the good years, and the decisions that matter do not…
Read →News & articles
Stories of Idaho leadership.
Leader profiles, participant spotlights, leadership lessons, and updates from across the Idaho Leaders network.
The Arrangement That Was Never Written
Informal understandings between water users have held for generations because everybody shared the same expectations. They cannot survive a party who was not present when they…
Read →The Employer in the Classroom
Students choose among paths they have heard described. One path is described in detail everywhere and the others are not described at all, which is a…
Read →What a Chamber Is Actually For
Business associations do one thing no individual firm can do, and most of them spend their capacity on things individual firms could do perfectly well alone.
Read →Hiring When Everybody Knows Everybody
In a small labour market the reference network is better than any process and the pressure to hire the wrong person is stronger. Both facts follow…
Read →The Manager Who Has Been There Thirty Years
A long-serving competent manager gradually becomes the institution, and the board becomes an audience. Nothing is wrong until the day they leave, and then everything is.
Read →The Teacher Nobody Can Replace
A rural district competing for staff cannot win on salary and is not primarily losing on salary. What it can offer is specific, and most districts…
Read →The Two Cultures Problem
In a family firm, the same conversation is simultaneously a business discussion and a family one. Separating them is not a matter of professionalism; it requires…
Read →The Customer Who Is Too Large
Concentration arrives through success. Each year of serving one buyer well makes them a larger share, and the firm discovers it has become a supplier operating…
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