2021-12-05 12:07
This is the 408th blog I have posted, and due to some additional commitments, this will be my last. For the past eleven years I have really enjoyed providing this blog’s audience some… Read More
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Bob Herbold is the former chief operating officer and executive vice president of Microsoft corporation. What's Holding You Back? is Bob's third book on leadership.
2021-11-08 14:08
Stepping back and looking over my many years at Procter & Gamble (P&G), then Microsoft, and then being a member of numerous corporate boards of directors, there is clearly one busine… Read More
2021-10-22 20:44
Peter Drucker, the famous management/leadership guru, has made some very famous statements relating to the importance of focus. Here is one of the most instructive:
“If th… Read More
2021-10-08 00:32
Recently the President of the US issued an executive order/goal calling on electric, fuel-cell, and hybrid vehicles to account for 50% of car and truck sales by 2030. That is only 8.5… Read More
2021-09-22 19:13
WeWork was started in 2012 and leases office space and then subleases it to organizations as “shared office space.” It was co-founded by Adam Neumann. SoftBank is a venture… Read More
2021-09-02 13:27
Prior to 2018, Dow and Dupont were both mired in the complexity of a mishmash of many product offerings In several different industries and as a result, were turning in mediocre business res… Read More
2021-08-19 22:31
Exxon had a very rough year in 2020. Revenues sank by some $83 billion versus a year ago and the energy titan tumbled from No. 3 on the Fortune 500 list to No. 10. After two deca… Read More
2021-08-05 18:07
Very few Fortune-500 CEO’s have been as successful in growing a company as John Legere. He became CEO of T-Mobile in September of 2012, and the overhaul has been massive, and the… Read More
2021-07-20 00:14
Regularly posting these blogs on the Gutsy Leadership website (www.bobherbold.com) was started years ago to help launch the 3rd book I did entitled “What’s Holding You Back: Ten… Read More
2021-07-05 19:14
About five years ago, McKinsey, the once admired consulting giant, undertook a rapid expansion. It sought out new ways to grow, and with a decentralized management structure, there wer… Read More
2021-06-21 16:59
Back in 2012, Best Buy was on the ropes. The stock price was in the neighborhood of $1.00/share. Its competitors Circuit City, CompUSA, and Radio Shack were even in worse shape: all th… Read More
2021-06-08 01:17
Lego was founded in 1932 by a carpenter selling wooden toys. In 1947 the products were changed to plastic, and Lego launched the classic interlocking bricks. It quickly became a… Read More
2021-05-17 21:45
I haven’t referenced a government example in past blogs, but there is such a glaring example of poor leadership out there right now that I can’t resist.
We have read a lot… Read More
2021-05-03 22:54
Gutsy Leadership Blog – Blog #395
So…what happened that caused this colossal train wreck for the former corporate icon formed in 1892 by Thomas Edison, J.P. Morgan and a few oth… Read More
2021-04-19 21:39
Tesla was founded in 2003, and until 2012 it marketed only a two-seat roadster. In 2012 the Model S four-door luxury sedan was launched, and that was really the start of Teala as we kn… Read More
2021-04-05 16:46
From a business perspective, the past 12 months have been about as wild as anyone could have imagined. The dreaded pandemic, and the constant CDC alarms, led the consumer to be fearful… Read More
2021-03-22 21:55
Over the past ten years, Pfizer’s annual revenue dropped from $61 billion to $42 billion in 2020, due primarily to divesting consumer healthcare and key drugs going off-patent (e.g., V… Read More
2021-03-12 23:51
Social media antitrust challenges, interest rate increases, and wild gyrations in the stock market, particularly in the tech sector, are the topics of the day. To see an interview I di… Read More
2021-03-09 02:28
Several years ago, there was an article in the Business Insider publication titled “The 15 Worst CEO’s in American History.” Of the 15, four strike me as having parti… Read More
2021-02-24 15:02
Check out my recent interview with Gerry Baker on Fox Business. It focuses on the very recent flap between Facebook and the Australian government, and the implications of the agreement… Read More
2021-02-22 22:26
The CEO of Mastercard for the past ten years is retiring at the end of 2021. He has delivered to shareholders a cumulative total return of +1,581%, which is five times that of the S&am&hell…Read More
2021-02-09 02:11
Six months ago, I wrote a blog that described how things might finally be falling into place for IBM to get itself out of its long-term downward spiral. In mid-2019, the company paid $34 bil… Read More
2021-01-25 23:23
Intel, the once-dominant designer, and manufacturer of microprocessors, has been losing ground to competitors. Versus three years ago, the stock price of Intel is flat, while the S&am&hell…Read More
2021-01-18 15:11
Click here for my recent interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business. It focuses on the various issues facing social media companies and the possible increase in the corporate tax rate… Read More
2021-01-04 21:33
The founder of Barnes & Noble started the business in 1971 by purchasing a bookstore on 5th Avenue in New York by the name of Barnes & Noble (B&N). He turned the brand into… Read More
2020-12-21 18:57
Very recently a class action lawsuit was filed on behalf of Tesla Models S and X owners alleging the automaker continues to ignore suspension safety issues. The suit claims Tesla not on… Read More
2020-12-15 18:07
Check out my interview with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business. It focuses on the reasons why a growing number of tech companies are leaving California, and Silicon Valley in particular, and… Read More
2020-12-04 20:59
Quibi, a streaming service for smartphones that offered original shows with short five to ten-minute-long episodes, was launched in early April this year. The founder and board chairma… Read More
2020-11-20 22:14
For a long time, the world of cold and hot beverages has been dominated by Coke, Pepsi and Starbucks. But along with the pandemic came a surprising new player, Keurig Dr Pepper (KDP)… Read More
2020-11-07 03:00
Prior to the virus, Airbnb was quite successful, but the 39-year-old CEO and co-founder was frustrating Wall Street by constantly putting off an IPO, thus blocking investors from, at long la… Read More
2020-10-30 15:39
Here is a link to my interview today with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business regarding the earnings reports of the tech giants and the antitrust situation those companies find themselves in Read More
2020-10-16 18:03
Whole Foods’ first store opened in 1978 in Austin, Texas. National expansion began in earnest in 1984 and it has grown to 500 stores in North America. In October of… Read More
2020-10-02 15:28
Back in 2006 when Apple was developing the iPhone, Steve Jobs decided that while the original plan was for the iPhone to have a plastic screen, like the iPod, it would feel much more elegant… Read More
2020-09-18 19:38
With people stuck at home, it is no surprise that Netflix is having a great year. On the other hand, there is a whole bunch of new streaming options, such as Disney+, that are also thr… Read More
2020-09-04 12:27
One business book that I have always held in high regard is titled “Danger in the Comfort Zone” by Judith Bardwick. It was published over twenty years ago and describes wha… Read More
2020-08-21 01:34
Anytime there is a significant change in an organization, it can have a very unsettling effect. Examples of the kind of changes I am talking about are reorganizing to better meet the n… Read More
2020-08-06 20:07
One financial analyst calls IBM’s last ten years its wasted decade. In that period, the company’s annual revenue dropped from a tad over $100 billion to under $80 billion a… Read More
2020-07-23 17:40
Brooks Brothers is a classic name in retailing. The 202-year-old company pioneered ready-made suits and its clothes have been worn by dozens of U.S presidents, including Abraham Lincol… Read More
2020-07-09 08:47
One of the hardest things to do in a large organization is to stop an effort that has been on-going for years. Microsoft provided a great example recently of doing exactly that. … Read More
2020-06-25 22:52
One thing that really confuses employees is when the manager pursues a long, painful “values/mission/charter/vision/strategies/objectives/goals” exercise. First of all, wha… Read More
2020-06-11 08:59
Learning From China’s Chairman Mao: Avoid Generating Fear!
I am reading the book Tombstone, by Yang Jisheng, whose father was one of the thirty-six million people that starved to death… Read More
2020-05-27 02:02
The America’s Cup yacht competition held in Fall, 2013 featured only two yachts, one from New Zealand and one from the U.S. Both used exotic technology enabling the boats to atta… Read More
2020-05-18 20:10
Today I had an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business News where we discussed the apparent upcoming antitrust lawsuit focused on Google. We also chatted about the learnings fro… Read More
2020-05-04 19:29
The news that Neiman Marcus has hired a restructuring firm to help them prepare for bankruptcy has been expected for the past several years. While clearly the virus problems have pushe… Read More
2020-04-20 18:10
The Boeing CEO, the Governor of New York, and Crisis Communications
During the past few weeks, we watched how the Governor of New York managed the coronavirus crisis, and how the Boeing CEO… Read More
2020-04-06 13:02
The term “fake news” has become part of the popular vocabulary. In the world of “fakeness” there is no doubt that Facebook stands out from the crowd. Spec… Read More
2020-03-23 15:56
The passing of Jack Welch provides a good stimulus to consider what powerful, enduring lessons he taught us. No doubt some of his aggressive approaches are viewed skeptically by some today… Read More
2020-03-13 00:01
Today I had an interview with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business News where we discussed the virus and the challenges China represents to the tech sector. You can view it by clicking here Read More
2020-03-02 21:52
Organizations don’t survive without the ability to regularly implement change to adapt to new situations and capabilities and seize opportunities. A few years ago researchers at… Read More
2020-02-17 15:33
A leader’s job, on an ongoing basis, is to thoroughly understand what is going on in the business, have in place a high impact plan to significantly improve the business, and to contin… Read More
2020-02-03 16:17
In 1997, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, including its CEO Harry Stonecipher who became COO of Boeing. In 2003, Stonecipher became CEO of Boeing and, as reported in Fortune Magazine… Read More
2020-01-20 18:12
For about the past 50 years, Warren Buffett has been buying companies, such as GEICO, Duracell, and BNSF Railroad, and buying shares in major U.S companies, such as American Express ( owning… Read More
2020-01-06 12:42
2019 saw some very big names in the world of investing and finance end up with quite red faces as they got seduced to investing in weak business models with even weaker managements. He… Read More
2019-12-30 12:39
Here is a link to an interview I did last week on ”Mornings with Maria” on the Fox Business network. It covers a variety of topics such as antitrust in the tech industry, a… Read More
2019-12-17 13:32
IBM, the once-storied technology company, has become a laggard when the world is seeing rapid technological advancements. Since 2010, the stock price has increase +4%, while the S&… Read More
2019-12-03 17:38
Recently a technology analyst who has been covering the industry for a couple of decades commented: “On my last couple of trips to Silicon Valley, not one person I spoke to had anythin… Read More
2019-11-21 14:41
Earlier today, I was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo and the co-hosts of the Mornings with Maria show on Fox Business News. The discussion centered around the China trade/tariff/intellectual… Read More
2019-11-12 16:37
The article on Amazon’s master plan for success that appeared recently in the Atlantic magazine is a very interesting read. I was most impressed by the clear description of the core pr… Read More
2019-10-29 19:15
A couple of years ago a management research firm did a massive survey of almost 100,000 people employed worldwide and surprisingly, almost a third cited “burnout” as a problem th… Read More
2019-10-15 22:55
Over the years, Boeing CEO’s have constantly stated publicly that Boeing has no higher priority than the safety of the flying public. As the details of the development of the company&r&hell…Read More
2019-10-01 16:33
From a tech perspective, the big news recently is the postponement of the WeWork IPO. Investors have become unnerved by deepening losses at the company, which last year bled $1.61 billion in… Read More
2019-09-17 13:46
During the period of 2015 -16, Target was in a serious decline. The stock price went from the $84 per share range in early 2015 to $64 by late 2016. As pointed out by Fortune magazine recent… Read More
2019-09-09 20:54
Here is the link to the broadcast interview I did today with Neil Cavuto on Fox Business News regarding the growing antitrust efforts focused primarily on Google and Facebook Read More
2019-08-29 20:39
Something unique happened last week. After many quarters of disappointment, Nordstrom actually beat the street’s estimate of earnings per share. Given this is the first piece of good n… Read More
2019-08-15 22:36
For the past three years, AT&T has really been struggling. During that period, the S&P 500 Index gained +38%, while the AT&T stock price declined by -21%. Debt now stands at $200… Read More
2019-08-01 18:17
There was a recent article in the Wall Street Journal which focused on the fact that more companies are placing individuals in the CEO role who are members of Gen X (ages 35 to 54). The esse… Read More
2019-07-25 19:28
Here is a link to my interview today on Fox Business regarding the very significant Department of Justice antitrust launch this week on the tech companies involved with social media and o… Read More
2019-07-18 17:41
Several years ago there was some interesting research on employee motivation that really stuck with me. The conclusions were based on a massive study that involved twenty-six project teams f… Read More
2019-07-04 03:29
Google investors are frustrated. Since January 1 of this year, Facebook, Apple, Twitter, and Microsoft are up +47%, +27%, +20%, and +32% respectively, while Alphabet/Google is down -3%. Even… Read More
2019-06-20 19:58
Shares of Tesla have plunged almost 40% this year as investors and analysts’ question whether demand for its cars has peaked. In addition to the drop in deliveries, the company posted… Read More
2019-06-06 15:50
Netflix has always been the innovator who was way out in front of the current market offerings. It was 1997, when only 7% of households had a DVD player, that Netflix launched its “mov… Read More
2019-05-23 13:39
Alphabet, the parent company of Google, recently announced results of its first quarter, and it was the largest revenue shortfall relative to expectations in years. This caused the stock pri… Read More
2019-05-14 21:10
Earlier today, I was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo and the co-hosts of the Mornings with Maria show on Fox Business News. We discussed a number of topics including the WhatsApp breach, toda… Read More
2019-05-06 18:41
Earlier today, I was interviewed by Neil Cavuto on Fox Business News. We discussed the impact the US-China trade tensions are having on everything from consumers to the… Read More
2019-04-25 14:48
There is nothing quite as important in an organization as having a leader who is highly skilled in spotting vulnerabilities, developing the goals to fix things, telling the entire organizati… Read More
2019-04-19 17:24
Earlier today, I was interviewed by the hosts of the Mornings with Maria show on Fox Business News. We discussed a number of topics including Facebook’s leade… Read More
2019-04-11 20:13
In starting up Apple Computer, and then growing it into a gigantically successful technology company, Steve Jobs constantly preached the following to the employees:
“We don’t get… Read More
2019-03-29 02:54
In June, 2017, the USS Fitzgerald collided with a giant cargo ship in the Pacific and seven sailors died. A few months later, the USS John S. McCain, another destroyer in the Navy’s he… Read More
2019-03-14 10:18
Berkshire Hathaway (aka Warren Buffett) is best known for buying highly successful companies with very high-quality products run by people who have accumulated a deep understanding of all as… Read More
2019-03-11 18:39
This past weekend, I was interviewed on the Friday evening Maria Bartiromo’s Walll Street show on Fox Business News, which also aired on Sunday. We discussed in detail… Read More
2019-02-28 01:34
Before my 9 years at Microsoft, I spent 26 years at P&G, with the last 4 as a Senior Vice President. Given that experience, I have a strong opinion as to why P&G has performed so wel… Read More
2019-02-13 17:57
Max Perutz is known as the “Godfather of Molecular Biology.” While he did receive the Nobel Prize for the discovery of the molecular structure of hemoglobin, he is equ… Read More
2019-02-04 21:57
This morning I was interviewed by Maria Bartiromo on the her Fox Business show called Mornings with Maria. We covered quite a wide range of topics. Fox Business broke the intervi… Read More
2019-01-24 17:45
To most Main Street investors, BlackRock is basically invisible. The New York-based financial giant is deeply woven into the fabric of global investing. Surprisingly, i… Read More
2019-01-14 04:23
Facebook, Google and Twitter have had a really rough time of it in 2018. Versus their 2018 highs, their stock prices are off -38%, -15%, and -30% respectively, but more impo… Read More
2019-01-04 02:39
If you go back 20 years, General Electric was one of the most admired companies in the world. It participated in a variety of different product categories and in each, it had a fi… Read More
2018-12-20 21:05
Over the past year, Facebook has gotten itself into numerous problems that are clearly having a big negative impact on the company. Most of these problems are due to their own faulty behavio… Read More
2018-12-17 14:53
Last week, I had a great conversation with the team at Mornings with Maria on Fox Business News. We covered a rang of topics, including concerns over the potential threat to U.S. tech f… Read More
2018-12-06 12:49
Researchers from the London Business School recently completed some very interesting work on the topic of becoming a great boss. Many books have been written on this topic but I think the fo… Read More
2018-11-30 01:45
It’s aways great to chat with Fox Business News host, Neil Cavuto. On today’s show, one of the topics we discussed was President Trump’s upcoming m… Read More
2018-11-26 18:48
Recently the stock price of the Ford Motor Company has been trading around $9/share, a drop of 32% versus the start of 2018. The company makes some money in North America but is l… Read More
2018-11-12 21:37
It’s aways great to chat with Fox Business News host, Neil Cavuto. On today’s show, one of the topics we discussed was tech talent and the fact that even thou… Read More
2018-11-12 21:30
General Electric has been in a long-term decline ever since Jack Welch left the company in the year 2001. Since then roughly $300 billion of market value has been erased by the two CEO… Read More
2018-11-01 11:38
The retailing giants of the past few decades, such as the four mentioned in the title above, enjoyed long periods of huge success. Over the past ten years, unfortunately they simp… Read More
2018-10-23 00:03
The Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive of China’s titan tech firm Tencent is very vocal about what has enabled the company to make the list of the ten most valuable public firms in… Read More
2018-10-12 00:05
Positive feedback for a job well done is a powerful motivator. Then why are most managers so reluctant to tell people they did good work when that is the case?
Jess Lear, the psyc… Read More
2018-10-01 13:54
This past year and a half have been eventful for 130 year old Nintendo, with the company vaulting back from the brink of irrelevance to reclaim its position atop the global video game indust… Read More
2018-09-20 04:05
It seems that almost every day the financial news is dominated by the likes of Amazon continuing its rise to be the dominant retailer and Microsoft showing it is re-energized around the Clou… Read More
2018-09-10 12:27
When the Houston Astros won last year’s major league baseball World Series, it marked the end of a long and challenging road. It was the first time in the club’s 56 year hi… Read More
2018-08-30 12:21
In December of 2015 the CEO of Jarden Corp. negotiated a deal where he sold his company to Newell Brands and got a huge personal payout. He also negotiated that he would become a… Read More
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