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

You Cannot Scale What You Tolerate

Jun 17, 2025

Culture is not defined by what is written in a handbook or posted on a wall. Culture is defined by what leaders consistently allow, excuse, or ignore. When mediocrity is ...

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 ...

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 ...

mental models for scaling founder ceos frameworks

Scaling Up

The Mental Models Every Founder/CEO Must Master to Scale with Discipline

May 13, 2025

Most Founder / CEOs fail due to lack of frameworks Most Founder/CEOs do not fail because of a lack of ambition—they fail because of a lack of mental models or frameworks. Mental ...

The Key To Scaling a Company is CEO Critical Self Awareness

Scaling Up

You Are the Bottleneck: Why Critical Self-Awareness Is the CEO’s Most Underrated Performance Tool

Apr 22, 2025

Executive Summary: Most founders obsess over fixing their team — better hires, tighter meetings, clearer KPIs — but ignore the biggest leverage point: themselves. This piece makes ...

Get rid of the elephant in the room with The Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Scaling Up

About Your Elephant in the Room: Why Teams Fear Real Conversations

Mar 19, 2025

"Why was this not brought to my attention sooner?" Recently a Client I have contact with once every year or two called me and said, "Chris, I believe I have a problem..." He then ...

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