The Power of Margin

When I start working with high-growth founder CEOs, I often see a similar pattern.

Full calendars.
Decisions that never stop.
First in, last out.

It looks like commitment. But it’s actually a warning sign.

From the outside, the business may look healthy. Revenue is growing. The team is busy. On paper, things still look successful.

But internally, something starts to shift.

Decision-making flows upward. Leaders wait instead of owning. Important conversations get delayed because everything still runs through one person.

The team is capable. But over time, the business becomes increasingly dependent on one leader to keep everything moving.

Being busy is not a badge of honor.

The CEO has slowly become the ceiling.

That’s what a lack of margin often looks like.

What margin actually creates

Margin is the space between your next commitment and your capacity to think clearly.

It’s not a luxury.

It’s what allows leaders to stay strategic, develop leaders around them, and lead from clarity instead of constant reaction.

What the best leaders protect

The healthiest leaders I know protect their margin.

Space to think.
Space to reflect.
Space to develop the people around them.
Space to develop the business.

The best thinking doesn’t happen in back-to-back meetings.

It happens on a walk. During quiet thinking time. In quality conversations that aren't rushed.

For me, it often comes through a committed morning routine, yoga, flying, time in nature, travel, and quality time with family and friends. I’m also privileged to lead a team that steps into leadership to better serve our clients.

Where to start

Margin has to be built intentionally.

Start small. Ninety minutes a week. One block protected on the calendar.

But for many CEOs, the deeper issue is not just the calendar.

It’s that too many decisions still flow back to the CEO.

Over time, that creates a business where leaders wait instead of owning and the CEO becomes the bottleneck for clarity, direction, and decision-making.

The Function Accountability Chart is one of the first tools I use when I start working with leadership teams. When ownership becomes clear, leadership teams stop reacting and start leading together.

• Where does your clearest thinking happen, and how much of your week is actually designed around it?

• Does every person on your leadership team know exactly what winning looks like in their seat?

Your business needs the best of you. And so does everyone else in your life.

Leveraging AI & Discernment

Meta announced this week that it is tracking every keystroke of its employees to train AI.

Most leadership conversations right now are about adoption. What tools to use? What to automate? How fast to move?

But the advantage has shifted.

It is no longer about access to information. It is about knowing what to do with it.

That is discernment.

What We Did About It

A few months ago at PFD, we had this conversation.

Not just which tools to use. But what outcomes we actually wanted AI to drive. How we wanted it to shape our culture. Where it could support us. And where people always come first.

Because in a world where AI gives everyone access to unlimited information, leadership is about knowing what to do with it.

The leaders navigating this moment well are not just adopting AI quickly.

They are being intentional about how it shapes their culture, decision-making, and the energy of their teams.

Where Working Genius Comes In

Every person on your team is wired differently. Wonder. Invention. Discernment. Galvanizing. Enablement. Tenacity.

AI does not change that. It amplifies it.

The best use of AI is not replacing people. It is freeing them to spend more time in their genius. Less administrative drag. More human energy directed toward work that creates momentum.

Used well, AI becomes a force multiplier.

Curious to learn more about Working Genius? More information here → The Working Genius Model

Three Questions Worth Your Time

Is AI reinforcing your culture or quietly reshaping it?

What work should AI accelerate, and what should stay deeply human?

Are your people spending more time in their Working Genius or less?

The companies that answer those questions well will not just move faster. They will build healthier, more energized teams while they do it.

Celebrating Core Values: Reinforcing Behaviors That Shape Your Culture

Last quarter, a senior leader at one of our clients faced a situation that didn't have an easy answer. Rather than defaulting to what was fast or convenient, he leaned into their values. He slowed down, asked better questions, and chose the harder, better path.

The result was an outcome that created real value for the company. But more importantly, it was one of those moments that remind you what your culture is actually made of.

One of the most important jobs a CEO has is stewarding their culture. And in my experience, the best way to do that is by finding the stories of when your people lived your core values and sharing them widely.

Core value awards are how you make that visible. The CEOs who do this consistently show their teams what "great" looks like.

Why Core Value Wins Matter

To be clear: you are not trying to change people's core values. You are identifying the behaviors that reflect your company's values, reinforcing them consistently, and attracting people who naturally live them.

If you do not actively recognize values in action, your culture will default to reinforcing whatever gets results in the short term, often at the expense of long-term alignment.

Core value wins make the invisible visible.

How to Identify Core Value Wins

Look for moments under pressure

Values show up most clearly when something is at stake.

• A leader who chose integrity over speed.

• A team member who prioritized people over profit.

• A decision that reflected long-term stewardship over short-term gain.

These are the stories worth elevating.

Focus on behavior, not just outcomes

Results matter. Behavior is what scales culture.

Instead of highlighting that someone closed a major deal, highlight that they walked away from a misaligned opportunity to uphold your values.

Capture the story while it is fresh

Build the habit of asking what happened, what made it hard, and what value was demonstrated. This creates a steady pipeline of meaningful stories.

How to Reinforce and Scale These Wins

Make it a leadership discipline

Start every leadership meeting with core value wins. Each leader brings one or two examples, a clear connection to a value, and a brief story behind it. This builds alignment at the top.

Teach through stories

When sharing a core value win, describe the situation, the tension, and the decision that was made. The emotional detail is what sticks and gives your team something to model.

Make it visible across the organization

Do not let these stories stay in leadership meetings. Share them in all-hands meetings, internal updates, and quarterly off-sites in a company culture book. Repetition builds clarity.

Create meaningful recognition moments

Take your strongest stories and elevate them further with quarterly core value awards, annual recognition tied to specific values, and peer-nominated awards across teams. Every award should be tied to a real story and a clear behavior.

Final Takeaways

Culture is not what you say. It is what you consistently reinforce and reward. You are not trying to change people. You are building an environment where the right behaviors are recognized, celebrated, and repeated.

Reflection Questions

1. What are one to two core value stories your entire company should hear right now?

2. Are your values being taught through stories or just stated in words?

3. What behaviors are you currently reinforcing, intentionally or unintentionally?

Done well, this practice aligns your team, accelerates execution, and ensures your organization scales in a way that reflects your values, not just your goals.

The Power of an AI Advisory Board: How to Get Started

Even the most seasoned CEOs face times when the path forward is unclear, the decisions carry weight, and guidance feels out of reach. In those moments, what if you could draw on the wisdom of leaders like Warren Buffett, Martin Luther King Jr., Sara Blakely, or Nelson Mandela?

An AI Advisory Board makes that possible. By thoughtfully curating the perspectives of history’s most effective leaders, you can systematically bring their insights into your most important decisions. Instead of defaulting to generic advice or falling back on your own limited vantage point, you can widen your lens—challenging assumptions, surfacing blind spots, and leading with greater conviction.

How to Get Started

Creating your AI Advisory Board is simpler than it sounds.

1. Select Your Voices
   Choose 10–15 leaders whose wisdom reflects both your personal values and your organization’s biggest challenges.

2. Craft Thoughtful, Specific Prompts
   Ask targeted questions that bring their distinct perspectives to life:

• “How would Peter Drucker frame this management challenge?”

• “What assumptions would Jim Collins push me to re-examine?”

• “How might Maya Angelou guide my decision toward greater integrity?”

3. Make It a Practice
   The power is in consistency. Incorporate this virtual board into your regular decision-making process, not just when you feel stuck. Over time, these diverse voices will shape the way you approach challenges, embedding wisdom and discipline into every major choice.

4. Don’t Forget the Human Perspective
   AI can broaden your perspective, but it can’t replace the wisdom of your team, customers, and family. Before making major decisions, test your thinking with the people who live with the outcomes every day.
   

Our AI Advisory Board at PFD

At PFD Group, we’ve intentionally built an AI Advisory Board that mirrors our own values of growing to give, serving as confidants, and stewarding lives around us. Each voice was chosen with care:

• Martin Luther King Jr. & Maya Angelou – for their moral courage and clarity when helping CEOs navigate ethical complexities.

• Warren Buffett & Jim Collins – for their long-term, disciplined perspective on building organizations that endure for decades.

• Nelson Mandela – for his resilience and transformational leadership in the face of seemingly impossible challenges.

• Sara Blakely – for her bold innovation and ability to reimagine possibilities in ways that expand influence and impact.
  

Each of these voices brings a different kind of wisdom. Together, they remind us that great leadership isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about staying true to your values while moving forward with focus and conviction. That’s the balance that helps leaders grow their organizations and spend their lives on what matters most.

Final Take Aways

Building your AI Advisory Board is not about replacing trusted mentors or wise peers. It’s about supplementing their input with a disciplined practice of seeking wisdom from history’s greatest leaders.

Done consistently, this practice doesn’t just sharpen decision-making. It keeps your decision-making rooted in your BHAG, centered on your core values, and connected to the broader mission of your organization.

Leading With Vision, Not Fear

One of the most powerful truths in business and life is this: you become what you think about most. This principle, articulated by Napoleon Hill, is not just symbolic — it’s practical. Leaders who dwell on challenges, setbacks, and competition often find themselves trapped in a reactive cycle. In contrast, those who direct their mental energy on where they want to go, with a focus on vision, opportunity, and growth, cultivate progress. The key isn’t ignoring problems—it’s approaching them with a solutions-first mindset.

Every scaling organization hits walls: team misalignment, cash flow pressure, changing market conditions. But the most successful entrepreneurs and CEOs don’t focus their mental energy on what’s broken. They keep their mind fixed - even in the face of challenges and setbacks - on what they are trying to achieve — a thriving culture, scalable systems, or a breakthrough product. This intentional focus shifts how they show up daily, make decisions, and communicate with their teams. Vision becomes contagious when it’s held consistently and authentically.

This doesn’t mean we avoid problems, competition, or even fear in an uncertain environment. It means we see them for what they are—temporary obstacles through which we have to navigate - with an eye on our vision and an unwavering commitment to our core values. By training ourselves and our leadership teams to focus on our desired future, we condition our organizations for problem-solving, collaboration, and growth. Scaling up isn’t just about building systems to grow; it’s about leading with vision, clear and frequent communication, disciplined execution, and consistent action toward what matters most.

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3 Key Scaling Up Questions

• What are we currently focusing on that might be holding us back rather than moving us forward?

• How clearly and consistently are we articulating our vision for the next 12-36 months to our team?

• What is the solution to our top constraint that will help move us forward?

Finding Game-Changing Talent with a Creative Sourcing Plan

If there is one thing that I know to be true about business, it is that the people on your senior team and in your company are the deciding factors in whether or not your company can scale effectively. I can not tell you the number of times that one of my clients has brought on a new team member and been absolutely awed by how game-changing that addition became. For example, just recently, one of our clients brought on a new human resources head and was stunned by the positive transformation she generated in the company. 

When I tell partners and colleagues about stories such as this, I’m always met with the same question: how exactly can I attract that type of game-changing talent? In the business climate we live in today, attracting top talent can be challenging: now more than ever, individuals have the option to apply to and work for companies all over the world. However, this shouldn’t scare you. With a creative and regimented talent sourcing plan, you too can put your company in a position to attract great talent. 

A good creative sourcing plan should leverage three resources: community partnerships, talent recruitment agencies, and being opportunistic: 

1. Community partnerships: Oftentimes amazing talent will be right in your backyard; you just need to know where to look. Community partnerships can be a powerful way to find that talent. Are there local universities, nonprofits organizations or boards that could connect you with potential employees? Once you identify individuals or organizations that may have potential employees, you can begin to build consistent partnerships with them. For example, I used to work closely with a professor at the University of Denver to find interns. This partnership gave me access to students that the professor thought were good fits instead of me trying to go through the school’s career center, which dozens of other companies were doing.

2. Talent recruitment agencies: Although this isn’t necessarily the most creative, talent recruitment agencies can be helpful. Your time and energy are valuable resources, so if you can afford to spend cash on recruitment agencies, it could be a worthwhile investment. 

3. Being Opportunistic: As a leader, you should always be keeping an eye out for potential talent. What this means is that if you meet someone amazing as you are going through your day-to-day-life, recruit them. You can’t plan to meet people like this, but you should be prepared to. To be prepared, you should be able to communicate your mission, speak to why you provide a valuable experience and have business cards on hand. 

These three avenues are each a viable way to find great talent and ones that I have personally used in the past. If you would like to discuss your sourcing plan further, feel free to reach out to me at emartin@pfd-group.com.

The Importance of Personal Life Planning

It’s often easy to ignore your personal life when you begin laying out your quarterly and yearly business goals. It goes without saying that as a leader you are always thinking strategically about your business: you set up benchmarks for success, discuss your goals and plan for the future business that you’d like to grow. While business planning is second nature to many great leaders, personal life planning is often undervalued and ignored. 

Personal life planning refers to taking the time to think holistically about your life and set up goals and priorities for each area of your life. Business can be one of those areas, but if you are doing personal life planning, it should not be the only area that you plan around. For example, a significant part of my life is family. When I plan for the future that I am working to build, they are an important aspect of that future. To ensure that I am properly building them into my planning, I have to take time to ask questions such as, “how much time do I want to be spending with my family on a day-to-day basis?” and “what resources do I want to be able to provide my children?” 

By asking these questions, I ensure that the work I am doing will help me to build a thriving life and not just a thriving business. Too often, I’ve come across individuals who have built amazing businesses but who, in the process, ignored other aspects of their lives. Personal life planning is a way to ensure that you do not ignore those critical parts of your life.

“You can’t be considered successful in your business life if your home life is in shambles.”

— Zig Ziglar

One way to make personal life planning a practice is to create a personal vision for yourself. Above, you will see some images from our team member’s vision boards. If you would like to learn more about vision boarding, and the powerful role it can play in personal life planning, click here.

Another powerful exercise to envision a future that you want to create is to go through what we call the Legacy Vision tool. This tool captures all that you want to be and do on a ten-to-thirty year timeline, and it will ask you to transport yourself into that future and answer questions such as: 

1. Who do you serve with your business? Who do you serve in other areas of your life?

2. What is your impact? How do you want to be remembered?

3. How long are you working? How much time do you spend with family and friends? What is your relationship with your family and friends like? 

For a complete set of exercises and questions, feel free to download our Legacy Vision Tool. Once you answer the questions and reflect on your future, you will have the information you need to draft a vision for your future. This vision can be one that you create with prose, bullet points or even with diagrams. The point of the vision is to have open space to envision what a thriving life looks like for you.

The Market Advantage of Authenticity in Purpose

As business owners, we know it is quite disappointing when companies with promise prove themselves to be untrustworthy. We know the feeling – opening up our news apps to see a front-page headline of a company with great potential get caught up in a scandal. The large , public scandals, combined with mass layoffs in the pandemic, have created a more hesitant and market that is more distrustful of the business landscape overall.

A photo of PFD team members, and key partners, enjoying a hike in Colorado

How does your company stand out in such a market? Authenticity in purpose. Find out how you want to serve the community, authentically and wholeheartedly pursue that mission, and consider all stakeholders in decisions. Consider this quote:

“The idea has been that corporations exist to maximize shareholder value, but corporations are starting to realize that if you only focus on [financial returns], you create resistance for your growth, and that diminishes shareholder value over the long run. A smarter strategy is one that creates wealth by benefiting other stakeholders. When your growth is good for the community, employees, customers, government, the country, environment, the world, and thereby good for shareholders, that is the ultimate strategy, because everybody wants you to win.”

— Kaihan Krippendorff

Genuinely investing in a purpose and mission, and authentically serving others, is a way you can build trust and loyalty with customers. However, cultivating authenticity is not easy – it takes real, disciplined work and intentional thought.

To cultivate authenticity in your business, you will need to:

Decide what’s most important to you.

While the needs of all stakeholders should be taken into consideration, every business can focus on a specific core purpose and cause. For example, while every business can take strides to reduce their carbon footprint, and source ecofriendly products, Patagonia has taken environmental conservation to heart, making their activism and ecofriendly practices a central part of their day-to-day operations. Conversely, another wonderful company, Capital III, leverages their portfolio companies to transform the lives of prisoners – employing them with good jobs, conducting leadership and skills training, and helping to ensure successful reentry. Both companies excel in their respective missions – contributing positively to the world that we live in. To help you understand where you want your business to make the most impact, check out our Legacy Vision tool.

Create accountability.

The next step in cultivating authenticity is to create systems of accountability, both in your personal leadership development and in your business.

1. Accountability in Personal Leadership Development.

   The most effective way to cultivate accountability in personal leadership development is to get yourself into a peer group of similar business leaders. This peer group (also called a cohort or mastermind group) should consist of people who share the same experiences to mentor one another. These people should have similar goals of service as you, who will support you in your challenges, and who keep you in check to your moral obligations. They are the people who will candidly share their experiences and wisdom, to not only help you learn quicker, but also give input to make more holistic well-rounded decisions.

2. Invite relevant stakeholders to the table for decision making.

   In creating systems of accountability for your business, it is important that you give the people that are impacted by your decisions a chance to voice their opinion. For example, Monty Moran, when he was Co-CEO of Chipotle, made it a priority to visit as many restaurant locations as possible, talk to the workers there, and from that develop his priorities. With consideration of his employees, Monty then developed a managerial pipeline, creating better opportunities for employees to advance with Chipotle. This simple act of having real, authentic conversations about the needs of employees, and following through with programs to benefit them, creates a level of trust and shows authenticity in caring.

Own up to past mistakes and learn from them

Companies are run by humans. As such, no leadership team will produce 100% perfect decisions. Perhaps, before the Covid-19 pandemic, your team was pursuing an aggressive investment strategy, reducing your cash on hand, so when the recession hit you had to terminate the employment of some people. If your company really cares about your employees, and you found yourself in this situation, let the employees impacted know that you recognize your mistake, and that you apologize for the way that mistake affected them. Then, you could put genuine effort into helping them in finding a new position. Chances are that the candor with which you approach this situation will soften the frustration and hurt the employee may feel. In the future then, you could potentially learn to make sure to have more cash on hand to mitigate risk, or not overextend on payroll. While we will inevitably make mistakes, it is important that we learn from them and strive to be better in the future.

With these three considerations, we can strive to create better, more authentic businesses that our customers, communities, and employees can trust.

In Your Corner: Cultivating Leadership Growth with Others

The phrase “It’s lonely at the top” rings painfully true for some of us business leaders. If you are a CEO, you have likely experienced isolation that tends to come with the job. As a CEO, you are responsible for the livelihoods of the people in your entire organization, as well as their families, and your own family. That’s a lot of pressure. Further, if you are not careful, you also might be subject to an echo chamber of your senior leadership team only corroborating your ideas (rather than coming up with novel strategies to reach your goals) – leaving you to solely do the creative work. The point: as CEOs, we can become very isolated and stressed, very quickly. What we need is to develop a network of people around us – people who are in our corner – to confide in, garner creative ideas, invest in, and ultimately give us the confidence and clarity to make decisions in our business.

A good guide for developing such a network is the “Three Cs”: Coach, Cohort, and Community.

The first kind of key relationship in the network you cultivate should be a strategic coach. While we are a biased source with this recommendation, we have seen first-hand the transformation a coach can have on your organization. With professional sports, we would never expect our favorite teams to win games without a good coach. A great coach, like John Wooden, can propel teams to extraordinary success. Such is true with business professionals as professional athletes – a great business coach can act as a trusted guide to propel you to higher levels of success. They can be your confidant, helping to address your challenges by providing an impartial perspective. Further, coaches can bring a deep knowledge of proven tools and execution rhythms as well as reduce stress by helping you to cultivate simplicity in your business. 

The second kind of key relationships that we recommend you cultivate is a cohort. For reference, a cohort is a group of people who share the same experiences to mentor one another. They are the people in your corner – who know your experiences (also CEOs), who have a similar mission to you, who will support you in your challenges, and who keep you in check to your moral obligations. They are the people who will share with you openly, so you can learn from them to reach your goals more quickly. In these cohorts, everyone is mutually invested in each other’s growth, and it is a place to gain wisdom and insight from your peers. Modern Psychology and Sociology backs the benefits of these sorts of relationships – terming them “strong ties” – nurturing ourselves and our ability as leaders.  Many CEOs participate in cohorts already, calling them mastermind groups.

The third kind of key relationships that we recommend you cultivate is a community. In the context in which we are speaking, a community encapsulates the broader reach into the world that you have – the acquaintances in your network from all over. These connections, per a Sociological and Psychological framework, are termed “weak ties”, and they are valuable because they give you broad access to people and resources that can help you further your mission (and you can do the same for them as well). Essentially, these are the people in your rolodex. These are the people that will welcome you into their neighborhoods, partner with you with their organizations and associations, and create mutually beneficial relationships that allows your impact to have a far reach. These are the people to call upon to source talent, strike deals, and organize philanthropic efforts.  With a strong community, you will never have a shortage of people to call upon to solve problems and strategize a better shared future.

With a coach, a cohort, and a community, you will have both the strong personal connections that foster growth, and the access to broader networks (with people and resources) that make your impact possible.