Imagine you could have a skill where--in any given conversation with colleagues, clients, or subordinates--you could be keenly aware of, and even experience, their feelings and thoughts.

Sounds like some X-Men-like psychic superpower right? Well, what if I told you that anyone can have this uncanny ability and use its strength and charm to have successful conversations? Well, you can. The superpower I refer to is called empathy.

Most executives today know their enterprises should be aligned. They know their strategies, organizational capabilities, resources, and management systems should all be arranged to support the enterprise’s purpose. The challenge is that executives tend to focus on one of these areas to the exclusion of the others, but what really matters for performance is how they all fit together.

Strong, dominant team effort is facilitated by a leader who has a clear direction and the capacity to influence his or her team to work toward the realization of a vision. This point is illustrated nicely in the article "World-Class Teams" by David Kirk.

It may seem that planning out your goals in weekly, monthly, and yearly increments would be a blueprint for success. But could a more haphazard approach actually be better?

There’s so many ways to develop a brand, and so much advice on how to do it. It can be hard to distill the enormous amount of information available to small businesses who need help letting people know why their company is so important. Here are my four best tips for growing your business and your brand.