The Rainmaker Blog – Building People, Leaders, Teams & Economic Moats

Tell the truth - even when the road is not easy and it hurts

Tell the Truth. Even When It Hurts

Jun 12, 2025

Radical candor. Brutal facts. Productive ideological conflict. Truth is the essential growth discipline. The most dangerous lies in any organization are not spoken. They are ...

Scaling Up

Leaders Bring the Weather

Jun 10, 2025

How Founders / CEOs Can Shift from Chaos to Clarity — Starting with Themselves You have felt it, have you not? You walk into the room and the mood shifts. People glance up. Some ...

Focused female CEO demonstrating strategic execution, discipline and professionalism

Scaling Up

When You Are Wildly Profitable, You Can Do a Lot of Stupid Things and Still Win

Jun 3, 2025

Profitability Does NOT Mean You Are Brilliant Profitability is not brilliance. Discover why discipline, not dollars, determines whether your success is sustainable or just lucky ...

The key to building strong performing teams is productive ideological conflict through The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Team Effectiveness

The Nietzsche Thesis: Your Meetings Are a Lie and Everyone Knows It

May 30, 2025

Truth Dies in Your Conference Room Your leadership team is not aligned. They are not speaking openly. They are not solving real problems.

Sales Selection

Top Salespeople Always Have One Foot Out the Door

May 29, 2025

If your best sales representative is not taking recruiter calls or checking the market once a quarter, then you do not have a high performer. You have a comfortable one. Let me be ...

Visionary CEO launching a high-performance culture using teamwork, data, people strategy, and execution triggers as rocket fuel

Scaling Up Team Effectiveness

The Accountability Flywheel: The No-BS System for Building a Self-Policing Culture

May 22, 2025

Most founders and CEOs do not start companies dreaming of micromanaging grown adults. But when accountability breaks down, that is exactly what happens.

Business team aligning around a critical number during strategy session

Scaling Up

How to Create a Company-Wide Obsession with the Right Number

May 20, 2025

Most companies do not suffer from a lack of effort. They suffer from a lack of coordinated direction. Most organizations are wasting valuable time because their people are not ...

Team pushing together up a hill, representing aligned effort and operational discipline

Scaling Up

Some Years You Win and Some Years You Build Character

May 20, 2025

Steve Jobs famously stated, "I am convinced that about half of what separates successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance." Jobs' timeless quote ...

Teams that use a disciplined approach to team building win much more

Team Effectiveness

Team Building Is A Leadership System - Not a Retreat

May 15, 2025

Most companies treat team building like a box to check. A quarterly happy hour. A ropes course (remember those?). An annual offsite where everyone plays along. Then they return to ...

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