The record costs less than the copy
Six checks to run on any company, in any country, before you buy it, sell to it, or sign with it. The official record is cheap; the copies cost more.
Five exits, and more crashes than most people will admit to.
Nearly four decades optimising businesses, growing them fast and preparing them for a strategic exit. My own, and other people’s. The wins and the wrecks pointed at the same thing: the patterns that decide it are behavioural, so they can be changed. That is what I write about here.
From the writing
All of the writingThe term you'd never have accepted on day one
Most of the damage in a sale is done late, a clause at a time, by people who just want it finished. Write your walk-away down before fatigue sets in.
Nobody asked for an earn-out. You just offered one.
Silence makes sellers uncomfortable, and they fill it with money. Most negotiating losses are self-inflicted, and the costliest words come from your side.
The bigger offer is often the smaller one
$20 million with $7 million deferred or held back can lose to $18.5 million paid on the day. Take every offer apart before you decide which is bigger.
My Way of Being
I get up every morning
to transform how the world works,
to align business and pleasure as mutually inclusive,
so that more people live life and business
on purpose, with passion.
Some of the things I’m personally passionate about, beyond the work.
Be, without thinking.
No judgement of self or others, and no arguing with reality. Most of what we call perception is interpretation. It is what it is.
Spirituality.
Call it God, Allah, spirit, or source; the label makes no difference to me. We each have our own path. This is an insight into mine.
Purpose in action.
The world already holds enough for every person to live well. The shortage is not resources, it is distribution, and giving is how I work on my end of it.
Education, re-imagined.
Even the systems that call themselves future-focused are building for a world that will be gone in 30 years. I’ve imagined something that meets the one that’s coming.
Talks
See the talks- Ownership Is a Tolerance IssueWhy most culture problems are actually standards problems.
- Experience as the Operating SystemTotal QX™ applied to service-led businesses where experience is the asset that compounds.
- The Operator on the BoardWhat a working board director actually contributes.
- When the Board Fails the CompanyA decade of board observation across PE-backed and public-company settings.
- What Are We Passing On?From The Inheritance Manifesto: intergenerational transmission as the most consequential work any society does.
Bookings are by direct enquiry. I do not appear on speaker bureaus.