Atlantic City is a wondrous place; I remember visiting years ago, when the casinos were filled, and the players were waiting in line for a table. Today, most casinos are closed, and those remaining are empty with $5 tables on weekends. As I sit down at the roulette table and watch the ball run around the track, you can see the eyes on players filled with nothing but hope.

This look of hope is what I see from too many employers come renewal time. Unfortunately, most employers’ hope lands on green double zero as they watch the insurance carrier win their ante for the next twelve months. If the employer strategy is to annually interview consultants in a grand search for the lowest cost fully-insured carrier, how can the future be bright? If an employer does not address the major issues as to why healthcare costs are spiraling out of control, they are simply gambling with the future of their companies.

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Imagine one of your sales reps takes a client out for a steak dinner and submits the receipt for reimbursement. Later you learn that your finance team didn’t even look at the receipt and auto-adjudicated the reimbursement to the sales rep. Then you take a closer look at the receipt and you see a charge from the chef, a charge from the expeditor who glanced at the plates as they went out the door, a charge from the waitress, and a facility fee from the restaurant. Then you learn that this particular restaurant charges 500% more than other restaurants charge for the same dish because they aren’t known for steak, so their chefs just aren’t very efficient in preparing it. How angry would you be? You would probably contact the restaurant and demand an explanation and you may even demand your money back.

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Forbes Coaches Council member Aaron Levy has proposed that leadership training fails because of the structured way it is presented. Most leadership training programs are designed to present new skills in an easy-to-deliver, event-based format. The big problem with this approach is that it doesn’t deliver a change in behavior.

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Signing a Letter of Intent (LOI) is a major milestone in any business sale transaction. It’s important to understand which elements of a well-constructed LOI are necessary and why, which are binding and non-binding, and which deal points should be negotiated in the LOI phase versus being deferred.

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Three Outdated Beliefs about Balance Sheet Account Reconciliations, a Key component of the Financial Close, that May be Driving Low Management Expectations on Quality, Productivity and Cost.

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