When it comes to hiring, which is better: the applicant with the raw, natural talent or the one with experience? This is a question that industry executives and thought leaders have been debating for years – one that has become more prominent as technology continues to advance and alter the market landscape.

If you’ve ever seen an episode of Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsey, then you know that one of the first things he does when helping a failing restaurant is reduce and simplify the menu.

As a leader in your business or organization, it’s your job to identify the roadblocks to success and then blow them up. But how adept are you at recognizing internal problems within your leadership team, or even within yourself? Let’s explore three potential issues that should raise a “red flag” in your team.

Since we’re in the midst of the annual planning season, now would be a great time to explore the topic of talent development – starting with the talent bench.

To assist us with this conversation, we reached out to coach Tim Wiley. Aside from being a Gravitas Impact premium coach, Wiley is also the president of Wheelhouse Coaching and an expert on talent development. He provided us with some valuable insight into the importance of building up the talent bench, as well as some tips on how to do it well.

Keeping our attention on annual planning, let’s take a look at meeting efficiency – a critical topic considering that fruitless meetings are a wasteful and frustrating reality for many businesses today. An Inc.com study reported more than $37 billion is­ wasted on unproductive meetings and that executives across the board consider more than 67% of meetings to be failures.

This is a critical time for you and your management team. Annual planning is when you review the previous year and plan for the next. It’s a time to step back, align your team, and set the rhythm for the next 12 months, and more importantly, discover or re-discover the “why” behind your planning.

The Big Picture

Now more than ever, successfully leading a business requires cultivating a global mindset. With the growth of e-commerce, increased ease of international travel and adaptation of technology to facilitate the transfer of capital, goods and services, many businesses have already made the transition to expand their geographic footprint. This can provide opportunities for increased revenue and exposure, scaling your business exponentially and solidifying your share in the marketplace.

If you are considering entering a new geographic market, and struggling to pick the right one, Gravitas Coach Jean Guy LeBlanc has some advice. “Choosing your geographic market is a broad decision that involves other components of your organization’s strategic plan,” LeBlanc shares. “You need to look at the big picture, and how all the pieces of your strategy fit together.”