by Guy | 5 Nov, 2026 | BusinessFitness, Scalable Margin, Value & Founder Independence, Strategic Value Direction
“Everywhere means nowhere.” – Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, Letter II (trans. Richard M. Gummere, 1917) A Reasonable Year, and Nothing Left It’s the first week of November, and the founder of a distribution business is working through the October figures ahead...
by Guy | 29 Oct, 2026 | BusinessFitness, Scalable Margin, Value & Founder Independence, Strategic Value Direction
“We are doomed to choose, and every choice may entail an irreparable loss.” – Isaiah Berlin, “The Pursuit of the Ideal” (1988) An order comes in from exactly the kind of customer the business decided some time ago to move away from. The month has been...
by Guy | 22 Oct, 2026 | BusinessFitness, Strategic Value Direction, Structural Authority, Governance & Operating Design, Uncategorized
“Reckless audacity came to be considered the courage of a loyal ally; prudent hesitation, specious cowardice.” – Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (trans. Richard Crawley) In most businesses, a shock like this year’s oil and...
by Guy | 15 Oct, 2026 | BusinessFitness, Scalable Margin, Value & Founder Independence, Strategic Value Direction
“If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.” – Homer, The Odyssey, Book XII, trans. Samuel Butler (1900) Picture two owners of established specialist engineering businesses, a composite of several I’ve known, a few...
by Guy | 8 Oct, 2026 | BusinessFitness, Strategic Value Direction, Structural Authority, Governance & Operating Design
“The impression of the senses is stronger than the force of the ideas resulting from methodical reflection.” – Carl von Clausewitz, On War (1832), Book I, Chapter 6, trans. J. J. Graham (1873) Some twenty years ago I was flying up from the Lowveld...
by Guy | 1 Oct, 2026 | BusinessFitness, Strategic Value Direction, Structural Authority, Governance & Operating Design
“The reason why so few executives concentrate is the difficulty of setting ‘posteriorities’ – that is, deciding what tasks not to tackle – and of sticking to the decision.” – Peter F. Drucker, The Effective Executive (1967) It’s...
