Matt Mulholland
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The Employee Everyone Is Afraid to Lose
Every leadership team eventually has one name that changes the temperature in the room. You know the person. They know the business. Customers love them. They solve problems nobody else can solve. They have been there forever. When something breaks, everybody calls them. They might generate a lot of revenue. They might hold an entire…
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Your Employees May Not Be Resisting Change. They May Be Waiting You Out.
Leadership announces a new initiative. There is a presentation. Maybe a new dashboard. There is probably a sentence involving the word “accountability.” Everyone nods. Two weeks later, activity starts slowing down. Six weeks later, the initiative barely gets mentioned. Three months later, leadership launches something else. Eventually employees become very good at handling change. They…
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The Most Important Meeting Might Be the One After the Meeting
You have probably been in this meeting. Leadership spends an hour discussing something difficult. There is debate. A decision gets made. Everyone nods. Someone says: “Sounds good.” The meeting ends. And then the real meeting starts. Two people walk back to an office. Someone closes the door. And the first sentence is: “Well, that’s never…
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There Is More Than One Right Way to Load a Dishwasher
I have been informed that I have opinions about how a dishwasher should be loaded. I prefer to think of them as standards. I spend a lot of time talking with businesses about processes, accountability and consistency, and then I find myself looking at a coffee mug sitting in the wrong section of the dishwasher.…
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If Everything Is a Priority, Leadership Hasn’t Prioritized
There’s a phrase I hear constantly: “We have a lot of priorities right now.” Usually, that means we don’t actually have priorities. We have a list. There’s a difference. A growing business can easily identify twenty things that genuinely need attention. Hiring. Margins. Sales. Scheduling. Training. Technology. Customer service. Inventory. Accountability. Cash flow. Safety. Process…
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The P&L Question Every Operator Should Ask
I’ve sat in plenty of meetings where someone puts a P&L on the screen and everybody starts reading numbers. Revenue is up. Payroll is up. Gross margin moved. A few expenses look high. Then everybody starts explaining why. That isn’t necessarily financial management. Sometimes it’s just financial storytelling. The question I want operators asking is…
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Your Best Employee Shouldn’t Be Your Operating System
Every growing company has one. The person who knows everything. Customers call them directly. Employees ask them every weird question. They remember the exceptions. They know which vendor will actually answer. They know why that customer gets special pricing. They know the workaround for the software. They know where the missing part probably went. That…
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Five Numbers Every Owner Should Know Before Monday Morning
I don’t think every owner needs to become a CFO. I do think every owner should understand the basic economics of their own company. And I mean understand them without waiting for someone to explain a 28-page financial package. There are hundreds of metrics available. You probably don’t need hundreds. Start with five. The exact…
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Growth Doesn’t Create Operational Problems. It Exposes Them.
A company can get away with a surprising amount when it’s small. The owner approves everything. The service manager remembers every customer. The warehouse guy knows exactly where the weird parts are. The estimator has his own spreadsheet. The office manager has another spreadsheet. Nobody knows why the numbers don’t match, but somehow everything gets…
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Why Accountability Fails in Growing Companies
I’ve heard some version of this sentence in almost every organization: “We need more accountability.” Sometimes that’s true. But accountability is one of those business words people use when they can’t quite explain the actual problem. Before blaming the employee, I want to know five things. Did they know what they owned? Did they know…
