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Seven Stories from the Forbes Top 25 Best Small Companies List

Forbes Features Friends of the CVDL in New List In late January, Forbes magazine published it’s first list of the best small companies in the country. Explaining what makes these companies so great, Bo Burlingham, the Forbes contributor who organized the list and the original author of Small Giants – the book that inspired the

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In 2016, Clarify What Really Matters to You

Today marks the official end of the holidays. The decorations are put away, the children are back at school, and we are back at our desks. Diets are started, resolutions are made. With these new starts comes a desire to set goals for the coming 12 months. I always find it easy to make a list of ideas, and much more difficult to

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How One Man’s Search for Lipstick Changed the Way We See the World

Kevin Ashton was a young account executive for Proctor & Gamble in the late 1990s when he noticed one shade of the company’s lipstick was never on the shelves. Curious to better understand what was happening, he dreamed of putting microchips in the tubes, so P&G could know to ship the shade as soon as

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Dr. Indigo Triplet: Creating a Shame-Free Future for Survivors of Mental Illness

CEO Indigo Triplett, a graduate of our doctoral program in values-driven leadership, was startled to get the message in the mail: the insurance company she’d used for years was now denying her coverage because of recent treatment for bipolar disorder. “That was a wake up call for me that you take a risk when you

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Remembering Nelson Mandela

December 5th marks the first anniversary of Nelson Mandela’s death, and we are still mourning the passing of this great global leader. The anniversary prompts me to think about the legacy Mandela has left us. I have always admired Mandela for many things, but most of all, I admire Mandela because he was able to

CEO as Chief Culture Officer: How Top Execs Create Lasting Cultures

Culture Creators & Culture Sustainers NOTE: The following is an excerpt from Making Values Meaningful, a new e-book published by the Center for Values-Driven Leadership. Download your free copy at www.cvdl.org/menu.     The first and most important thing you can do to create a values-driven organization is to make values and culture a central

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How Values Drive Effectiveness – excerpt from Making Values Meaningful

Note: The following article is an excerpt from the Center’s new e-Book, Making Values Meaningful: A Menu of Options for Senior Leaders. Download a free, full version of the e-Book at www.cvdl.org/menu. Landing a $2 million dollar contract is a big deal in a company the size of Syncroness, a Denver-based engineering consulting firm. CEO Mike

In Appreciation of Our Veterans

          Honoring Our Veterans On Veteran’s Day and every day, we are thankful for the men and women who have bravely served their country through the United States military. We are grateful for your lives of service. Our Center’s focus on strategic, ethical leadership has always created a natural affinity with

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How Good People Get Caught in Ethical Traps

It has been over 10 years now, but I remember it like a scene in a movie. Work was progressing normally, overviewing spreadsheets for the various individually-managed real estate projects owned by the company for which I worked as the Chief Financial Officer. The spreadsheets had always made sense to me, but now the numbers

The author at a 2010 event.

Integrity & the Conflict Resolution Process

The “essentials” to conflict resolution listed by Dr. Carolyn Maraist, in her wonderful presentation, are consistent with the attributes associated with positive outcomes in my practice of labor and employee dispute resolution and collective bargaining negotiations. Amazing results were possible, in my experience, when such “essentials” to conflict resolution as “empathy,” “integrity,” and “hard work”