The first thing pressure changes isn’t performance—it’s behavior. See how decision rights migrate and why buyers recognize these signals before diligence begins.

Every owner I know who has sold a business says something similar once it’s over. They don’t talk about the multiple. They don’t talk about the closing dinner. They say, “Their A-team was playing a different game than mine.” Not smarter people. Not better people. Just a different game. The buyers had been there before. Many times. They knew how the questions would land. They knew where things would tighten. They knew which moments mattered and which ones didn’t. From the outside, it can look...

Most CEOs don’t have a leadership problem. They have a leverage problem. They’re surrounded by smart, capable people — yet still doing their team’s work. Not because they want to. Because they know how to. People default to solving problems they already know how to solve. For most leaders, that means diving back into the work instead of developing the people. The Familiar Trap It starts innocently. A missed detail. A fumbled client call. A delayed decision. You step in — because you can fix...