October 20, 2009
I've just spent the past several years studying the dynamics of resilience as it relates to business—why some people and organizations emerge from adversity even...
September 4, 2009
On Sept. 7, 2008, arguably the best football player in the world crumpled onto the field just over one minute into the NFL season opener. Team doctors delivered the ...
July 28, 2009
Last October, in the throes of the financial crisis, Nancy Nelson gathered the staff of her Spokane (Wash.) recruiting firm Humanix to deliver this message: "If you're...
July 7, 2009
Commercial aircraft supplier Tracer was in trouble last November. The 27-employee Milwaukee company, founded in 1993, saw sales fall 20% below already lowered ...
June 30, 2009
As sisters growing up in Rochester, Mich., Brenda and Mary Maher shared a bedroom and a Hasbro (HAS) Easy-Bake oven. As college students, they shared a passion for ...
April 15, 2009
Layoffs are a last resort for most small employers. They know cuts can quickly throw their companies into a tailspin by decimating morale and can hobble turnaround ...
April 15, 2009
When small businesses decide to lay off workers, they often can't afford generous severance packages or access to professional outplacement services. But employers ...
March 10, 2009
This excerpt from "When Growth Stalls," a new book by BusinessWeek.com columnist Steve McKee, highlights the importance of maintaining a healthy state of mind when ...
October 24, 2008
Back in June, I still believed our economy could finesse a soft landing, (BusinessWeek.com, 6/27/08) but it turns out I underestimated our ingenuity for screwing ...
September 16, 2008
I met Tony Hsieh, CEO of billion-dollar e-tailer Zappos, on a shuttle bus at a CEO conference a couple of years ago. So I was interested when Bill Taylor posted a ...
July 2, 2008
Michael Kirven, 38, and Eric Berridge, 39, didn't worry about a vacation policy when they started Bluewolf, their New York IT consulting firm, in 2000. As the startup ...
April 21, 2008
The U.S. has officially entered a recession. What's the best thing to do when times get tough? Hunker down, right? Wrong. I spent the last five years studying the ...
March 21, 2008
I was rock climbing near my home a few of months ago with two experienced climbing buddies, and I wasn't too shocked to learn both had hurt themselves (a broken ankle,...
February 15, 2008
If you started a three-month sabbatical today, what would your business look like when you returned? Small business owners may shudder at the thought. But ...
January 18, 2008
In a ham-and-egg breakfast, the chicken makes a contribution but the pig is committed, the old saw goes. Have you ever noticed that when failure is not an option for ...
January 2, 2008
Yossi Vardi is known as Israel's startup guru. For nearly 40 years he has helped to found and nurture over 60 companies in industries that include software, Internet, ...
November 26, 2007
The way Sean Perich tells it, the history of his company, Bakery Barn, is a typical entrepreneurial success story. He was a CPA and longtime weight lifter who turned ...
November 21, 2007
Last week I called customer service at a major national retailer. After navigating the obligatory automated telephone routing system, I was given the option of leaving...
October 29, 2007
Richard Goossen wears many hats. Over the past 20 years, Goossen, a lawyer, businessman, and academic, has founded startups, acted as strategic adviser to high-growth ...
August 1, 2007
One of the key questions for any entrepreneur is how to achieve growth. However companies often suffer the highest failure rate while making the transition from small ...
June 4, 2007
Victoria Colligan, a former corporate lawyer and one-time executive at high-end wedding gown designer Amsale, and Beth Schoenfeldt, the founder of Learning Solutions ...
May 7, 2007
Stuart Skorman, a former 1960s hippie-turned-dot-com mogul, launched the online video store Reel.com in 1997 and sold it three years later for $100 million. Since ...
October 4, 2006
To many entrepreneurs, the name Vinod Khosla is synonymous with Silicon Valley, startups and venture capital. Khosla co-founded Sun Microsystems (SUNW), and as a ...
January 12, 2006
When Daryl Rossman, president of Merco Manufacturing, wanted feedback about expanding his family-owned aerospace parts manufacturer or needed advice on strategy and ...
October 7, 2005
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, San Diego State University professor Michael Cunningham gave his MBA students a challenge: use their brains to come up with an ...