BHAG as a North Star
Every leader has an imperative to define, declare and clearly communicate a goal line, for their team. Without a goal, a team is not a team...
Blog: Forward Thinking
Often snarky, sometimes funny, thoughts and musings from Glen Hellman about Executive Development, Leadership, Startups, Washington DC Business and more.
The Soon to be Indicted Conspirators of Trustify
One of the leading Conspirators of Trustify, Danny Boice is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, yet he did learn one lesson in school...
The Heisenberg Institute is Seeking Nominations for the 2019 #DCTech Heisenberg Fellowship Cohort
The prestigious Heisenberg Institute is seeking nominations for their 2019 Heisenberg Fellowship DC Cohort. As many of you know the Heisenberg Institute has been sponsoring leaders of Innovation with their IOTA Heisenberg Fellowship program. The IOTA Heisenberg Fellowship is annually granted to four deserving fellows. The IOTA Fellowships are granted in the following four areas: I Fellows - Innovators O Fellows - Outside the Box Thinkers T Fellows - Thought Leaders A Fellows - Change Agents Former fellows include some of DC's best and brightest including, EverFi's - Tom Davidson, Proresource's - Judy Schram, nVite's - Marty Ringlein (See the complete list here). Fellows...
WTF Startup Chief of Staff
Lately, more and more I see the title Chief of Staff (CoS) related to startups. Holy crap...
What A Crock Of Startup Bullshit
I can't take it anymore. I can no longer continue ignoring Paul Singh's startup bullshit disguised as wisdom. Folks in the know keep forwarding to me ridiculous articles, stupid investments, and silly tweets of Paul's. One of his latest gems, a blog post titled, "You (probably) don't need a MVP, You need a list" forwared to me with the subject line, Do You Believe This Shit? Yes, I sure as shit do because I consider the source. It's Paul Singh, the "prestigious," prestidigitating street performer from the traveling medicine show of startup bullshit. The man who packed up all his...
New Tip: Dumpster Fire Trustify
File this in the for what it's worth file for Trustify. What follows is a transcript from a voicemail, I received at 6:05 PM, EDT on August 27, 2018. Signs of more layoffs and cost-cutting at Dumpster Fire Trustify. "Hey Mister Cranky, I've got something for you on Danny Boice, anonymous please. Mr. Boice has now lowered himself to firing via text the last above board employee he had. This employee was working endless hours. Fired late Saturday. As a direct result of that this employee is in ICU. All the while Mister Boice is sending Cort Furniture to try to empty the employees apartment...
Jonathon Perrelli LifeFuels Life Fool
What do you do if you're Jonathon Perrelli, the LifeFuels Life Fool, and Mr. Cranky won't stop pointing out how much of your investor's money you wasted promoting your product and yourself. How do you counter my frequent mocking because you've focused so little time creating a product? How do you counter Mr Cranky making fun of all the money and time wasted on meaningless pay-to-play awards like a CES innovation award (see post)? A competent rational person would stop focusing on self-promotion and start focusing on building real value. An intelligent strategic person would stop producing so much mock-worthy material....
Startup Community Leaders or Leavers?
I've always been suspect of startup community leaders. In fact, when Tien Wong accused me of being a startup community leader the other day, I was so offended I almost asked him to turn in his can of WhoopAss. Let's look at a history of startup community leaders in DC and keep score: Startup Community Leaders Who Are Leavers: Mario Morino - DCs first startup community leader at the end of the 90s and beginning of the aughts. He left town for his hometown of Cleveland over 15 years ago. LaunchBox Digital - How could these guys fail with such a...
The Power of Culture
Strong Culture Rarely Exists In The Wild [caption id="attachment_78719" align="alignright" width="189"] Ghost Orchid[/caption] The ghost orchid is one of the worlds rarest flowers. Since its first sighting in 1954, it has been found in the wild less than two dozen times. Yet it can be cultivated and grown in greenhouses in large quantities. Like the ghost orchid, a powerful culture of high-performance is rarely found organically grown in the wild. The best leaders build a powerful culture by bringing together the proper conditions for their teams to thrive. Potential leaders who randomly gather groups of individuals in the hope that someday, like a...
The Importance of Company Culture
Company Culture and the Power of Purpose The main goal of Intentional Leadership is to create a company culture of high performance. Managers are great with the hard stuff...