The Dark Side of Being a Leader

  We've almost rounded the sun once more. Less than 2 weeks left in 2021! And I turned 40 on top of it. Feels like an end of a chapter and the beginning of the next. This year was hard. If you weren't hard enough on yourself, I'm sure you felt judged by many people for how you've decided to deal with the pandemic, and how you thought about protecting your family, healthcare, closings/openings, the economy, the kind of leader you are, and many other things. I wanted to say... ... thank you for your support during this year. We have the most amazing people within our community who went out of their way to support me and the FIRMSconsulting team during this year, and during the entire pandemic. When masks were in short supply one of our incredible members made sure the entire FC team had enough masks. We have a prelaunch team that helps us polish the books before it is released to the broader community. We have amazing members doing all kinds of supportive acts of kindness to ensure the success and wellbeing of the company. And I am so grateful for each and every one of…

The Published Author Program

How can you start using the title published author in the next few months, even if you don't want to write an entire book You probably already know the benefits of getting a book published: Build a stronger personal brand immediately. Open the door to new opportunities. Add to your signature, your bio, your articles and proposals. A permanent marketing tool - most people do not throw books away, and they are always working on your behalf. Pre-frame yourself to clients before they even speak to you. Your book shows your expertise. Multiple authors are marketing you, every time they talk about your book. Use it in your content marketing plan to get leads. Instant authority boost. A book is your most powerful business card. Most people will never write the first book, you will have one to share in the next few months. Imagine your client interactions if potential and current clients saw your thinking in a published book before they met you? Imagine the time you would save not having to explain your ideas and the value you could add to them? Imagine the fee premium you could earn? Imagine avoiding awkward meetings trying to establish your credibility?…

Kris Safarova’s Biography

What is the CEO’s role?

What is the CEO's role? The CEO's role is to be the top executive of of a company who is responsible for key decisions such as overall strategy, managing overall operations. Here are some key responsibilities of a CEO: The CEO's role is to determine company's business model. The CEO has to define and adjust as needed company's strategy. What is company's mission, vision and strategy. The CEO has to define standards. Standards for your people and for your product. And for us at FIRMSconsulting, for example, standards for our people extend to standards for our clients. It's about integrity and quality. And CEO's role is to ensure the company operates in line with these standards. You have to lead by example. As with children who learn not from what you say but from what you do, so are employees within the company. The CEO's role is to motivate and solve the role of a politician in negotiating and maintaining/growing relationships with suppliers, distributors, collaborators, partners, and strategic allies. The CEO's role is to be an effective communicator. You have to keep on reinforcing important messages. When you say it, they say it. The CEO's role is to ensure financial…

Competitive advantage in your career

This week we will speak about how to think about what should be your competitive advantage and comparative advantage as you are building your career or business. Developing a sustainable and realistic competitive advantage and comparative advantage in your career is challenging. Everyone reading this understands how difficult and tiresome it is to renew your profile so that you remain attractive to your organization and clients on a daily, weekly, and yearly cycle. And it is not just about being better than you were 12 months ago, it means being attractive relative to your peers and competitors. Each year thousands of MBAs and other graduates enter the workforce with fabulous credentials, and your peers get staffed onto choice assignments close to the senior leaders of the organization. And for those of us living in the Western world age is often viewed as a liability versus an asset. Discrimination based on age is still acceptable and tolerated to a large degree. We live in a crazy world where 40 year old is considered old by many people in their 20s and 30s, even though we as humans are living longer and longer. Competing earlier in your career is easier. You can get an…

Meeting My Management Team

Meeting My Management Team Leading change is an intensely lonely job. This series of articles teaches how to apply best practices from McKinsey & BCG to any consulting business. In part 1 of this series we dived into how I was head-hunted to turnaround a boutique consulting firm. Part 2 provided an overview of the consulting practice I inherited. Part 3, this article, focuses on my initial interactions with the management team of the consulting business. We explore the challenges of leading and turning around a consulting business when one has to deal with a hostile management team. For confidentiality reasons, we have modified some of the details in these articles.  Meeting my management team The night before the first meeting with management team was not a great one by any measure. The room was tiny, it was noisy and I could not sleep. There are few things worse than taking an extra strong sleeping pill and not being able to sleep, and then feeling terrible the next morning because the pill has not worked itself out of your system. So at 7am I was sleepy, groggy and preparing for a tough meeting. Everything moved in slow motion. Did I mention the airline misplaced my luggage, again? I was feeling…

Terms

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