A leap is required whenever you start any new project, initiative, or business; you can’t possibly know everything before diving in. However, there are some simple ways to “look before you leap” to spot potential hazards with a small amount of upfront planning.

In 2010, I first discovered the concept and value of planning on a single page through the book “Business Model Generation” by Alex Osterwalder and Yves Pigneur. It was in this book that the authors introduced the now well-known Business Model Canvas. 

Unlike typical text-heavy and overly tedious business plans, the Business Model Canvas represents a quick, thoughtful, and visual way to get the entire vision of a business on a single page. These features make the creation of a canvas a lot of fun. Whereas the same can seldom be said about the creation of a typical business plan.

The canvas consists of nine elements that allow you to quickly get an overview of what a business or initiative requires to succeed.

Like all good p...

In this episode of Toughest Call, Izabella Roth, CEO of Infinity Healthcare Ltd., talks about how she boldly stepped into the creation of a new company at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. 

Izabella shares the many changes she embraced in her business-building journey that took her from the days of panicking about making payroll to presently expanding Infinity into new markets.

Izabella Roth: If it's scary, go and do it. You can't change unless you do things that you're scared of doing.

Chaz Thorne: Welcome back and welcome to Toughest Call, a podcast for organizational leaders, where we hear stories from your leadership colleagues about career-defining decisions. I'm your host, Chaz Thorne. 

In this episode, I'm talking with Izabella Roth, the CEO of Infinity Healthcare, about how she boldly stepped into the creation of a new company at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. Presently, Infinity provides in-home health care to clients in Alberta and British Columbia with pl...

How do you assess your organization’s change readiness?

One of my favorite books is “The First 90 Days” by Michael Watkins. Though it is positioned as the “onboarding bible” for executive leaders, the book also includes excellent insight into strategy formulation and implementation more broadly.

One of the frameworks Watkins puts forth is his STARS Model. In effect, the model allows you to get clear on the “lay of the land.” This clarity is essential because if you jump into proposing significant changes before doing this foundational analysis, you will likely encounter resistance from the individuals you are expecting to implement these changes.

Whether you have led your team for a while, were recently promoted or transferred internally, or are stepping into a new organization, STARS allows you to answer two key questions: 

1. What change am I being called upon to lead?
2. What type of leader must I be to lead this change?

STARS is an acronym for five different types of status of ...

What does it take to bring about an organization's strategic realignment? In this episode of Toughest Call, Scott Skinner, CEO of Clean Foundation, talks about how he and his team strategically repositioned their organization to heighten its impact. Scott takes us through how he initially positioned this strategic pivot for success, and then kept it on course, during execution.

Scott Skinner: We had really great, well-educated, competent people that could take on complex projects, so I saw this, I was like, I need to apply these people to their highest and best use. So that may require a pivot.

Chaz Thorne: Welcome back, or welcome to Toughest Call, a podcast for organizational leaders where we hear stories from your leadership colleagues about career-defining decisions. I'm your host, Chaz Thorne. 

In this episode, I'm talking with the CEO of Clean Foundation, Scott Skinner, about how he and his team strategically repositioned their organization to heighten its impact....

How do you navigate a toxic business relationship?

Sooner or later, we all find ourselves in a partnership, team, or company where something isn’t quite gelling.

But sometimes, that situation turns from uncomfortable to toxic when there’s a conflict in values.

In her episode of the Toughest Call podcast, Dr. Dianne Tyers, the Dean of the Faculty of Open Learning and Career Development at Dalhousie University, talks about her experience confronting this situation as a partner in a consulting business. After years of cultivating clients and achieving financial success, she found herself grappling with the strain the partnership was putting on her values.

As a strategic planner, I’ve seen that organizations have no problem coming up with a list of stated values.

The challenge is that sticking to them means some very real short or medium-term pain.

Despite the enormous financial hit, Dianne stuck with her gut and her values and ended the partnership.

Though the road back to success ...

How do we assess whether a partner is a good fit beyond a typical, surface-level analysis? In this episode of Toughest Call, Dr. Dianne Tyers talks about her decision to end a business partnership that would have a significant impact on her company’s revenue for several years.

Though she was an entrepreneur at the time she made this tough call, Dianne is now Dean of the Faculty of Open Learning and Career Development at Dalhousie University. She shares what she learned about the importance of ensuring you share the values of an individual or organization before you enter into a partnership.

Dianne Tyers: I got to the point where I need to be true to who I am, I need to be true to the values under which I established this organization that I'm running, and I just need to make this decision.

Chaz Thorne: Welcome back, or welcome to Toughest Call, a podcast for organizational leaders where we hear stories from your leadership colleagues about career-defining decisions. I'm you...

What is your organization’s Guiding Light?

In his episode of the Toughest Call podcast, Mark Bowden, a world-renowned expert on body language and communication, takes me through the process he uses with leaders to arrive at an economical, truthful, and credible statement that can align an entire organization.

Many people think this is what mission and vision statements achieve.

The unfortunate truth is that they typically fail miserably at this task.

What’s worse is the process to arrive at these ultimately useless statements is usually painful.

You spend months in and out of meetings. Maybe you’re working with expensive outside consultants and facilitators. Dozens of emails have gone back and forth. You’ve been promised the endless “wordsmithing” will be worth it. In any case, everyone seems to believe this is “very important work”. And then you have it; the perfect mission and vision statement. You send out a memo, slap it on a poster in the lunchroom, put it up on your websi...

In this episode of Toughest Call, Mark Bowden, world-renowned body language expert and communications coach, walks us through the process he uses with leaders to guide them to present ideas effectively.

We're doing a role-play: Toughest Call host Chaz Thorne is playing the role of CEO of a fictional company called Terrific Toboggan Co. With a fresh new one page strategic plan in hand, Chaz has come to Mark seeking advice on communicating the new plan to his wider team.

Chaz Thorne: Welcome back, or welcome to Toughest Call, a podcast for organizational leaders where we hear stories from your leadership colleagues about career-defining decisions. I'm your host, Chaz Thorne.

In this very special and fun episode, I'm talking with my good friend, Mark Bowden, one of the world's top experts in body language and communication. Mark is a sought after keynote speaker and Communication Coach. His clients include politicians, presidents and CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, and prime mini...

What motivates you to lead?

Not something superficial like making money, but the motivation that strikes a chord with you when your work and what truly drives you are in alignment.

In conversations I have been having with leaders, many have admitted to being exhausted or feeling burnt out at the moment. For some, this is because of the added pressures of being in charge through a pandemic. Others are finding themselves less motivated to stay with their current positions or to participate in their present organization.

Alan Stein Jr. is an author, corporate keynote speaker, and expert on high-performance. In his episode of the Toughest Call podcast, Alan talks about his shift from being an elite basketball trainer helping young men achieve their NBA dreams, to helping corporations tap into the elements of peak performance.

To achieve this pivot, Alan focused on what really excited him in his work: having the opportunity to inspire and motivate others to achieve their best.

How d...

The “North Star” approach to impactful leadership follows the same path that elite athletes take to perform at a world-class level. In this episode of the Toughest Call podcast, Alan Stein Jr., keynote speaker and performance coach with over a decade of working with the NBA’s highest-performing athletes, shares how he used the North Star approach to pivot out of personal and professional burnout. Additionally, he talks about how he used his North Star to match the skills he acquired as an elite basketball trainer to identify a problem he could solve for corporations as a keynote speaker.

Alan Stein Jr.: When I continually do that type of introspection, for me the North Star is about fulfilment, it's about experiencing true joy. It's about having a sense of inner peace. It's about doing work that I love, and that I feel is making a contribution to others. And I'm doing it with people that I truly care about.

Chaz Thorne: Welcome back, or welcome to the Toughest Call, a podcast ...