I'm Melissa Ortiz, and today I'd like to discuss something that's near and dear to my heart: culture and core values. But probably not in the way you've heard before.

In the ever-evolving world of small businesses, being a great leader is about more than just crunching numbers and making tough decisions. It's also about understanding and managing emotions—both yours and those of your team. Enter Emotional Intelligence (EI), the secret sauce that can transform your leadership style from good to great.

When you find the right employees, you want to do everything in your power to keep them. This not only benefits the bottom line, but increases sales, strengthens customer loyalty, and improves employee morale

“No one can whistle a symphony. It takes a whole orchestra to play it." -H.E. Luccock.

The Harvard Business Review recently published an article called "Putting the Service-Profit Chain to Work". This article does an excellent job explaining the linkage between leadership, employee engagement, customer retention, and profitability.

Today’s organizations are looking for ways to get a leg up on the competition. The lean movement refined processes but process improvement can only move an organization so far.