In Toronto at yesterday's 15th annual graduation event for entrepreneurs supported by NEXT Canada, I was struck by chair Reza Satchu's keynote: Leaders, your job is to make decisions of consequence, and take full accountability for those consequences. It's the one chance humans still have to outperform AI. This rings true for me as an entrepreneur. It also strikes me that it is extremely relevant [...]

How does a global leadership team respond, when business success requires deep cuts in the workforce? As McKinsey said in January 2025, "leaders need to recognize their responsibility in driving gen AI transformation."  How do you keep your best people to drive the transformation as you reshape your workforce in an AI world, while letting go their friends and colleagues? Everybody knows AI is reshaping [...]

Client: Major international oil company Problem: How to get more out of our people without relaxing the tight controls our industry needs Enterprisecoach contribution: Mish and Ronnie from the Enterprisecoach network took 60 senior and middle managers through three month program to develop their ability to hear all the voices in the system, have the hard conversations in a constructive and engaging way, and add [...]

I’m inspired by Toronto’s social entrepreneurs. As Keita Demming would say, we could drop the “social” epithet and recognize that they are really just good entrepreneurs, who understand that innovation and business success must serve people and planet. Over the last month I’ve met so many inspiring people at the Centre for Social Innovation, including: Food upcyclers who transform “waste” from food production into inputs to other [...]

Just over ten years ago, I sold my shares in the hi-tech business I had co-founded, and stepped out of the founder-CEO role. Recently I asked the buyer (who took over as CEO) to look back on the time of negotiating my departure and his takeover. Since then he and his team have taken the business to new heights, leaving me filled with joy [...]

My Dad was an optimist about business. When I was young and hotheaded, I remember explaining to him how wrong he was. And I still think business is not all sweetness and light. And yet, maybe thanks to Dad, I prick up my ears every time I hear a story about business that is generative and life-affirming. Here’s one: a business leader who identifies generosity [...]

Leadership is not all about control. Nor is it all about democracy. Leaders are called upon in equal measure to hold the space for others in the group, and to give direction to the group. In other words, leaders both facilitate the emergence of leadership in their teams, and give guidance and direction to their teams. Put more bluntly, leaders hold empowerment in one hand [...]

This is about what changes as we go up the leadership ladder in organizations. I have found that the higher I go up the corporate ladder, the less detail I can control. It sometimes feels as if my control "budget" has shrunk, but the truth is that the number of things I can control has shrunk as their value has increased. I am now limited [...]

You've put your heart and soul into growing, building and fighting for this business for years now. Yet you realize it is time to go - soon. How separate are you and your business - really? If your business is a part of you, an expression of who you are in the world, almost like your flesh and blood offspring, then you are probably wondering [...]