What a day! As we watch the news in agony over yet another senseless shooting, I pray none of you were impacted. I am not so naïve. I recognize that is unlikely. Unfortunately, we are all impacted; some more than others. There is a massive amount of discourse and ugliness occurring in our country and across the world causing division. Some in fact by design. Honestly, I wish it escaped me. It doesn't. Frankly, I don't think it escapes any of us. In every conversation, let's t

Reading a recent Harvard Business Review article, the discussion unfolded around how we manage people and how all of our attention is focused on our extremely abundant financial resources; hyper-focus is placed on capital. In fact, according to Bain's Macro Trend Group, global supply of capital is at almost 10 times global GDP. If only we spent as much time and focus on our scarcest resource; people. I immediately recalled my article published in the Kansas Banker, it's focus

It’s the holiday season, and again my wife has waited until the end of the year to attempt to use the bulk of her vacation days that she’s not taken throughout the year. While I sat at my desk pecking away at the keyboard I noticed she was on her work laptop. “Aren’t you on vacation today?” I asked. “Yes.” She replied. “I’m just getting this one thing done. Then I’ll log off.” She chirped. I continued to work for quite some time before looking up again; as did she. Empl

Like the 1.01 billion people that can’t make it through their day without Facebook, I opened my app in a moment of a little downtime. I was surprised to see the face of a friend in a featured newspaper article her husband posted. It was the mother of the baby that determines where my family sits during Sunday Morning Service. As I read the Star Tribune story of baby Ella’s mommy, a line struck me. The line was about the local actress playing Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz at The

Remember the scene from The Blind Side where Mrs. Tuohy teaches Coach Bert how to lead? Coach Bert, barking out orders, and quite clear about his fleeting contempt for young Michael Oher screams onto the field from his perch, “Oher! You got a hundred pounds on Collins and you can’t keep him out of our backfield?” After a few “coaching” words with Michael up close, he heads back to the sideline. Leaning over to commiserate with his Assistant Coach, “Well at least we’ll look go

(Published in The Arkansas Banker) Imagine having more DDA, Mortgage and Trust customers than you can handle, triple digit revenue increases year after year and Twitter, Facebook and Periscope ablaze from customers singing your praises. The best companies are the result of their people. No two alike; each bringing a dynamic difference to the workplace. Does your environment allow your people to bring their full selves, making the unassailable difference for your organization?