CEO Leadership Insights - December 2025

“Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store.

Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

The Grinch

From ‘How the Grinch Stole Christmas”

By Dr. Suess

(aka Theodore Geisel 1904-1991)

The “Kodak Moment” Question

“By the time it becomes obvious that a technology will have truly disruptive impact, it is often too late to take action.

In fact, hard data can fool management, lulling them into a false sense of security”

CLAYTON CHRISTENSEN

Author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”

Many of you are engaged in strategic planning for 2026 and beyond. No doubt you’ll be asking yourself important questions about products, competitors, and markets.

I hope you’ll ask and answer this question: What business are you really in?

Vistage speaker Gair Marxwell in a short article and 4 min video looks at Kodak which once ruled the camera and film business. In 1996, Kodak was a $15 billion dollar business until the advent of digital photography. This wouldn’t be remarkable except for one thing:

Kodak invented digital photography.

Why didn’t they focus on this?  They thought they were in a different business. They were wrong.  

Kodak declared bankruptcy in 2012.

Mr. Maxwell will explain what happened and share some similar tragic examples from other industries who failed to ask “The ‘Kodak Moment’ Question”

Bad Behavior (Yours and Theirs)

A Vistage speaker told my groups once that “we hire people for what they know…and we fire them for who they are.”  In other words, people tell us who they are through their behavior in the workplace…which is difficult to assess until after someone is hired.

This brings to mind another bit of wisdom from a Vistage Speaker: “Silence means agreement.”  What we tolerate is what employees believe we approve of.

Vistage speaker and employment law expert Hunter Lott thinks that employers get the behavior they don’t want because they’ve effectively allowed it through their own negligence in not making clear what behaviors are expected…and with the employment market power shifting back to the employer, he suggests an important question you should ask when you get behavior at odds with what you expect.

Check out his latest “Take Five” on managing behavior (yours and theirs) with Mr. Lott’s short video: “Just do it now.”

“What Really Matters” From The Sage of Omaha

Warren Buffett, founder and Chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, is leaving the financial world, having announced his retirement earlier this year at age 95 to be succeed by Greg Abel, a former Canadian Utility executive.  I do not envy Mr. Abel's task, but if Mr. Buffett’s judgement in picking a successor matches his wisdom as an investor, the shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway will be in good hands.

The “Sage of Omaha” will no longer write his annual Letter to Shareholders but has promised to continue to pen his annual Thanksgiving Letter

You are no doubt aware that Mr. Buffett is that rare alloy of wealth and wisdom whose thoughts on life and what really matters are, to him, more important than his investment strategy.

This short article from INC Magazine shares “three timeless lessons”  and the Secret to Success and a Life Well-lived

Econ Recon:

Don’t get excited:  As was expected, the Fed came through with a quarter point interest rate, but as Lauren Seidel-Baker tells us, this cut is less telling about the path of rates going forward… and inflation which ITR Expects “higher and later” than the Fed.  Check out her latest FedWatch for more.

No Bubble Here: Economist Brian Wesbury addresses a rumor that “ a nationwide collapse in home prices is on the way, that we are in the ‘biggest bubble in history,’ the collapse is “’inevitable and nothing can stop it.’  Shades of 2008?  Mr. Wesbury thinks otherwise and explains why in his recent blog post  “No Home Price ‘ Collapse’ “

Friends,

I wish you all a wonderful holiday season full of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love - the 4 themes of the Christian Advent season ("Advent" refers to "Waiting for the arrival of the Messiah", as foretold by the prophet Isaiah around 700 BC in the Old Testament in Isaiah chapter 9, verses 6 & 7).

Regardless of your religion, let's be agents of these four qualities - Hope, Peace, Joy and Love - with all those we encounter this season. Our world needs this!

I also wish you all a Happy and Successful New Year!

Scott