A full to-do list does not explain where a business is going. Strategy requires clear choices about customers, value, focus, and what not to do.

Before adding next year’s goals, examine the bottlenecks, overloaded managers, low-value work, and unclear ownership still haunting this year.

A hiring freeze changes the budget, not the workload. Leaders must decide what to eliminate, simplify, postpone, or automate—and who owns what remains.

Before automating a task, follow the workflow, define a good result, and keep someone responsible for reviewing the output.

Most companies don’t have an AI problem. They have a clarity problem. AI is everywhere right now—embedded into tools, layered into workflows, and increasingly expected to drive efficiency across the business. And in the right environment, it absolutely can. It can reduce time, increase output, and remove friction from well-defined work. But like most things in business, its effectiveness depends…

I was at a Santa Monica Chamber event recently, meeting people for the first time, when someone said, half-jokingly, “Oh — you’re the guy they bring in to fire people.” I hear some version of that more often than you’d expect. I usually answer the same way. Sometimes people do get let go. But that’s rarely why I’m brought in.…

Most people start coasting the first week of December and don’t really come back online until sometime after New Year’s. I’m not judging anyone for it — I’m right there with them. Every year, I tell myself I’m going to stay focused, and then I find myself wrapped up in Christmas parties, gift shopping, heavy traffic, and convincing myself that…