Nobody appreciated the traditional values of hard work and sacrifice more than Drew Maddux. Growing up in Tennessee, he disciplined himself as a boy to take 750-1,000 shots a day on the basketball court because he wanted to be the third person in his family to play basketball at Vanderbilt, where his dad and grandfather played. Maddux achieved his goal of playing…
When Joe Assell was an undergraduate student at Mississippi State, he competed for a prized summer internship at Cherry Hills, the legendary golf course just outside Denver. The problem with prized internships is that everyone wants to get them, and Cherry Hills had set aside a single opening for Mississippi State. So, Joe did what an effective, future business leader…
When journalists ask Angela Ahrendts about how she made the transition from being CEO of one of the most recognized fashion brands in the world, Burberry, to the senior vice president position at Apple, she tells them that what may seem like an unconventional path is really just another way of doing what she’s always done: working in the “people…
Playing lacrosse at Princeton taught Nick Lane that there are different ways of “keeping score,” whether the “game” you are playing is on a field or in a business or, simply, in life. One way to keep score involves winning, which in collegiate lacrosse ultimately means winning the National Championship. By that definition, Lane certainly learned how to keep score…
When Ron Simmons co-founded the Retirement Advisors of America, a wealth management company for retired commercial airline pilots, he developed the practice of holding a 20-minute meeting with each of his team members with “no agenda other than getting to know each other.” Managing other people’s money had taught Simmons that trust was the foundation of any strong and lasting…
Leave it to the CEO of WD-40 to find a way to smooth out any friction in his company’s culture, but that’s exactly what the company’s new boss Steve Brass did on day one of becoming the leader of a brand whose name has become synonymous with making things operate better. “The first thing I did was go out into…
