Articles

Financial Management

How should worker cooperatives think about profit?

How Cooperatives & Democratic workplaces should think about profit. If profit “belongs to Capitalism”, how do businesses rooted in the Solidarity Economy1, including worker-owned cooperatives and democratically-run conventional businesses, deal with profit? In these types of businesses that are intentionally structured and governed to not exploit workers, we need to frame profit differently, not as […]

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Systems Thinking

My Janky Business

On a sunny Wednesday afternoon in mid-March, I hear the telltale grumbles of a rooftop snow avalanche building momentum. Soon: a roar, a bit of house shake, a momentous thud, leaving a whole section of our metal roof cleansed of months of Northern Vermont snow accumulation. Just as suddenly, we are off the grid. You […]

Leading Yourself

No longer hibernating

I’m emerging from a long winter publishing hibernation. It felt a bit gauche to lob 3000 words at you after a cold spell— inhospitable even! As in corner you at the party to launch into an hour-long monologue about my shitty ex. I mean, geez, we haven’t spoken in ages. I will keep this one […]

Financial Management

Making Up Money Stories

In our recent end of year money meeting1 a client told me that they were bummed their numbers weren’t better closing out the year. They had implemented an end of year bonus profit share arrangement a couple of years ago, and looking at their numbers it was pretty clear this year’s was going to be […]

How to design a Team Retreat

To retreat, in the tactical sense, is to strategically cede ground by withdrawing; to double back, in the face of overwhelm, in order to reassess. This isn’t fully how we use the term in organizational design and development, though I would argue that it’s apt, given how overwhelmed many of us feel in the day-to-day. […]

Leading Yourself

Something’s Gotta Give

A forgotten sabbatical, and many moves later. On a recent call someone asked me about the sabbatical I took at the beginning of this year— they listened to the podcast episode where John and I talked about it. And my brain sort of glitched for a second…like, oh, shit, I did do that this year […]

Financial Management

You don’t have to do it all at once.

The power of transparency and intention when you’re not yet paying your people as much as you’d like. I went for a walk with a friend and client this morning, who, reflecting on the last year or so of her business reminded me that I had frequently advised her that she “can’t do everything all […]

Too Many Organizational Charts

On not strangling your business with unnecessary hierarchy. Every once in awhile a New Yorker cartoon lands that seems to capture the zeitgeist of a particular organizational trend, at least in my corner of the world. This one was really one of those “ya either get it or you don’t” pieces, and I delightedly flung […]

Financial Management

The Business Owner’s Guide to Getting Paid

I’ve been informally polling colleagues lately— folks that coach and consult with businesses— about how many of their clients come to them paying themselves a consistent, good-enough salary. The answers have ranged from a little laugh at my funny joke to “15% max.” This tracks to my experience: if polled, a few of you might […]

The Pitt as Workplace Feedback Manual

Credit where credit is due: a client gave me this writing assignment. We’re both watching The Pitt, the Noah Wiley career reboot emergency room drama that has been accurately called “competence porn”. Client said “you need to write about how this show is a masterclass in workplace feedback”1 Assignment accepted. The Pitt is set in […]

Leading Yourself

Back to the Work

Here’s my punchline: I took six weeks off from Wanderwell and nothing bad happened. I didn’t check email once, didn’t get pulled into any urgent (or not so urgent…) fires, and came back to a smoothly running business. I spent most of my time off in India, a country I know well, having lived there […]

Financial Management

An End of Year Cash Flow Checklist

A framework for money decisions for your business. One of my least favorite marketing tactic pieces of business financial advice that never seems to go away is the call to shovel money out the door at the end of the year— buy lots of stuff to save on taxes they say! It’s blanket advice driven […]

Reimagining Business

Out of Office – A Sabbatical

I’m writing to you with a little travel keyboard and an iPad. I’ve gotten through most of my to do list, or else put things on a “to don’t list”1, my computer is turned off and stashed in the dark depths of a closet2 for the next six weeks. I’m in the penumbra before my […]

Systems Thinking

Anti-Capitalist Wealth Management: A conversation with Tiffany Brown & Kate Poole of Chordata Capital

Sometime around summer/fall 2020 I noticed the word anti-capitalism shift from niche corners to wider internet meme-fodder. Like a lot of concepts and phrases that pick up steam in the wider halls of the internet, the more the phrase was thrown around the more the meaning became…fuzzy? muddled? I saw “anti-capitalist” slapped on all sorts […]

Reimagining Business

Strategic Questions for Uncertain Times

In smallbusinessland, we’re in the season of turning our attentions to next year, as we always do, but amidst a vortex of uncertainty that for many feels bigger, scarier than ever. As I’ve sat with clients the past couple of weeks, we’ve shared a lot of fear and worry together; a lot of questions about […]

Reimagining Business

Some Ideas About Transparency

I serve on the board of director’s of Bartram’s Garden, the oldest botanical garden in the country and a unique pocket of nature snuggled into a historically neglected zip-code in Philadelphia. Much of the neighboring land is taken up by decaying sites of industry. It’s a dynamic, magical, and multi-faceted place grappling with ideas of […]

Financial Management

As I gear up to publish the next zine series, The Radical Business Owner’s Guide to Profit (update: available in the library), what’s become clear is that we’re not all that clear about what we’re talking about when we talk about profit. Most often, we mean a substance that demands exploitation— something to maximize, a […]

Systems Thinking

Further Disasters: The business of ongoing crisis.

In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene’s wreckage, I revisited this piece that I wrote last summer after historic and devastating flooding in Vermont

Systems Thinking

Time Off for Owners

This is the third part in a trio of posts about extended leave in a business. Much of what I wrote about providing paid leave for employees applies to owners, but there’s obviously some particularities about ownership that require some more thought. Read the first two posts: Providing Paid Leave The State of Family Leave […]

Leading Yourself

I’m on a brief writing retreat this week, not totally off the grid, but more off than on. A friend lent me space in a more rural corner of Vermont than even where I live, and so I’ve absconded with Josie the dog. I’ve been sneaking off for residencies or retreats at least a couple […]

Financial Management

What to do before you can hire a bookkeeper

How to best keep your books yourself. For most folks just starting out, we do not recommend setting up professional accounting software if you’re not ready to hire out your bookkeeping. There are a lot of options instead of hiring a bookkeeper, that won’t lead to messy finances or tax season angst. And even if […]

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