We have a major opportunity to reframe the roles and responsibilities of corporate stewardship
In 1970, Novel laureate Milton Friedman proposed that an enterprise’s sole responsibility was to shareholders by maximizing profits: “the social mission of business is making profits, period, with other social goals best left to politics.” Corporate duty to maximize shareholder value, or shareholder primacy, has emerged as the dominant principle for free-market capitalism. This capitalist…
Reaching out to wayward customers will reinvigorate your sales and allow you to do a lot of market research
Grant was on the ground yelling as I came around the corner at high speed on my mountain bike at dusk. He had flown off his bike instead of hitting a moose standing on the trail. I skidded to avoid him. I could still see two moose, a cow and her year-old calf, on the…
Nokomis Craft Ales is putting Nokomis, Sask. on the map – defying conventional thinking that only the big city yields success
Troy Media publisher Doug Firby and Travel editor Lisa Monforton are part of a group of Canadians who call themselves ConnecTour. Starting in May in British Columbia and ending in October in Newfoundland, they hope to make an 8,000-km bicycle journey across the country, discovering how the COVID-19 pandemic has reshaped our lives and our…
A $600 million gap exists between what the province currently spends and what it can afford to spend without increasing its debt load
Based on the mood in government offices in Fredericton, you would think everything is rolling along smoothly with the top down. Yet, the province’s finances are headed straight for a brick wall. According to the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer’s latest report, there’s a $600 million gap between what New Brunswick currently spends and what it…
By Bradley Doucet and Miguel Ouellette Montreal Economic Institute Allow us to join in the chorus of praise for the charitable giving of MacKenzie Scott, the ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, who announced last month that she had given away another $2,739,000,000 to 286 organizations. Private philanthropy is part of what makes the world…
Canadian politicians like Chrystia Freeland see tax competition as a “race to the bottom.” But for the rest of us, a global tax cartel will mean an inevitable march toward higher tax bills and more pork for companies with access to politicians. Freeland agreed to the American-led proposal for a global minimum business tax of…
Implement a plan, hold your sales team accountable, and keep updating and changing your sales campaigns
Debra was flustered. She had taken over a business with the intent of growing it but had come to the realization that increasing sales might be easier said than done. She recognized that because of the added overhead expenses of her operations, sales would have to grow 50 per cent from current revenue to ensure…
The results will lead to an outstanding future for your business
Help is a word that’s foreign to many entrepreneurs, so when a caller says they need help, I listen intently. I received such a call in November 2019 from an entrepreneur who had bought into a company and realized that the management team was struggling. “Dave, I need an outside perspective on how to move…
When someone asks what you do, they might really be asking: Who are you?
Norm was a faller. For three years, Norm fell big trees in the wilds of British Columbia. He was so good at his job that he could drop a tree exactly where he wanted and taught others to do the same. Norm could have let his job define who he was and lived the hard-working,…
Calls by self-identified progressives and others who purport to champion equity, compelling everyone to pay their fair share, have grown louder and more strident. It seems these social justice warriors have discovered previously unknown inner fiscal conservatism, with their usual zeal for redistribution and punishment for those who they deem have excessive wealth. It’s wealth…
Essentially, we lose the amazing power of human-to-human connection
Regardless of how the future plays out in your organization, one thing is certain: virtual meetings are here to stay. It’s easy to see why. They are cost-effective, as there is no need to pay employees to travel and incur related expenses and, when successful, they enable talented peers to work together regardless of location…
Find someone you can trust to communicate what you’re going through
On a recent Sunday afternoon, I went over the handlebars of my bike, bent my front wheel and landed on my head. My son Caleb wasn’t surprised – in fact, I’ve noticed he worries about me when we go riding. And I admit I’ve had my share of accidents on my mountain bike. The thing…
A Strava-like mentality can take your business to a whole new level
My cycling buddies have been using the phone app Strava for years to track their rides. While this isn’t novel, the appeal of Strava is that, like Facebook, you can see what your friends are doing and comment on their activity. Unlike Facebook, there’s honesty in postings because your whole activity is measured, not just…
Available workers are rarer than openings now. Smart business people will start making adjustments so we can all enjoy some prosperity
At last we’re beginning to see beyond the pandemic to a return to more normal times. Businesses are reopening. Corporations have capital to invest and are starting to do so. Thanks to government support during the pandemic, many people have savings to spend. The combination of a liberation from lockdown and all these available funds…
We must free internal trade, reform banking and telecommunications and increase incentives for retraining
By Sara MacIntyre and Marco Navarro-Genie Frontier Centre for Public Policy Canadians want change. It’s been more than a generation since we’ve felt the kind of overreaching power of government we’ve experienced in the past year. Daily freedoms have been curtailed, millions of livelihoods impaired, savings drained and countless fines and arrests created for new…
In 1970, Novel laureate Milton Friedman proposed that an enterprise’s sole responsibility was to shareholders by maximizing profits: “the social mission of business is making profits, period, with other social goals best left to politics.” Corporate duty to maximize shareholder value, or shareholder primacy, has emerged as the dominant principle for free-market capitalism. This capitalist…
