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"If I am walking on the side of a mountain, I can see first a lake, then, after a few steps, a forest. I have to choose either the lake or the forest. If I want to see both lake and forest at once, I have to climb higher." ~ Simone Weil There's so much wisdom in this quote. On the flip side, if we want to see things clearly, we have to go closer to examine the forest. To look at each tree, we have to walk right up to it. While that gives us the detail of how each tree grows in the forest, we will lose sight of the lake. So, as leaders, we have to take that hike. We have to walk down to the trees every now and then to see if the trees are growing according to how our people report to us. But we must also ensure that we hike back up into the mountains to get an overview of everything. Trust our people too much to give the right information? Disaster—as they become mechanical and cannot take into account what's going on with the lake to consider what information is impor...

After 5 years, I'm finally going to write about what I've learned from running a family business: the top 5 things I couldn't just copy-paste from the corporate world into an SME, and the top 5 things I could. Here's a teaser. First off, it's been a rough journey for me. The whole idea of "managing up" changes completely when "up" is my Dad. All those data-driven presentations I'm so used to, the facts and analysis I've come to appreciate deeply, and the structured discussions I've been trained to lead—they all went out the window. Suddenly, I found myself dealing with passion, emotions, and relationships above all else. Sure, those elements mattered in the corporate world too, but there's a threshold there where people would eventually say, "Okay, you make sense. Let's do it your way." But in this family setup, the more "facts" I presented, the more I got told I lacked "experience," that I was be...