We have read many stories about the magical growth of Starbucks. However, did you know that one of its first presidents had a background in furniture sales and did not hold a college degree?

Our guest is the author of It's Not About the Coffee, and Howard Behar saw store units grow from a small handful to more than 15,000 during his two stints as one of its presidents.

In this conversation, we'll learn why Mark's favorite line is, "If you grow people, the people grow the business. That’s it. That’s the number-one priority." Howard discusses the Monday night meetings, dealing with crises, and why he had to stop wearing his feelings on his sleeve.

As my consulting practice started taking off about twenty years ago, I started reading everything I could by Fred Nickols, who blogged regularly for the software vendor, SmartDraw.

Fred's articles were short, to the point, and always included a simple visual framework that was easy to comprehend. I ultimately read every post on that blog.

Fred is a long-time consultant who calls himself a solutions engineer. In this conversation, we talk about his favorite frameworks and the origins of those mental models.

We live in a small business world where the Chief Fractional Officer is becoming indispensable.

Before even considering hiring the Fractional Sales Manager, the Fractional Marketing Officer, or even the Fractional CFO, I'd start one hundred percent of the time with the Fractional Chief People Officer.

Susannah Robinson has worked in big-company HR for more than twenty years. Now, as the head of a fractional people agency called Partnership for Talent, she has written a simple and pragmatic guide on organizational design for small businesses. In this conversation, we discuss her new book, Beyond the Boxes and Lines.