Beat a million CEOs to the punch

"...keeping you great" Ten Minutes with the Growth Guy

HEADLINES (June 30 deadline to beat a million CEOs to the punch -- see below)

12 MUST READ books listed below -- OK, I've lost many of you already. Your "tower of guilt" is already six feet high in your office -- filled with books, magazines, trade journals, and articles just waiting to   be read. There is an easy solution to reading the 12 books I list below -- a way for your executive team to learn together.

Defeating the Peter Principle -- this famous principle, where people have been promoted beyond their ability, plays itself out more rapidly in growth firms. In my 25 years of educating executive teams of growth firms THE reason a particular exec doesn't make it is they've simply failed to learn faster than the organization or industry is moving. And no tougher decision is made by a CEO than having to replace a trusted exec who hasn't kept up. Us members of YPO, EO, Vistage, Inner Circle, Renaissance and other CEO groups get regular educational opportunities -- it's important we provide the same for the rest of our executive team.

Bill Gates "Think Weeks" -- twice a year Gates secludes himself with his own tower of reading material. He's repeatedly claimed that these sessions have been critical to helping him navigate the turbulent waters   of his industry. And those that have read Malcolm Gladwell's book "Blink" know that having a great "gut feel" for making a decision actually requires reams of information that's been piled into your brain over time.

Read these 12 books or come spend two days in Las Vegas at the Gazelles Growth Summit and hear them speak October 24 -- 25 -- consider it a "mini-Think Week" for your executive team.

Best seats to those that place down a $250 deposit first* -- since its Vegas we're expecting a crowd to rival the 20th anniversary EO   conference that immediately follows. We have space for just 600 executives. The balance of the fees aren't due until 30 days before (in turn your credit   card balances won't come due until after the conference -- we know you have to protect your cash!).

1 million CEOs will receive their FORTUNE Small Business magazine the end of this week -- and the first full page ad runs for the event in the July/August issue. FORTUNE's conference division is back as the main host -- this event is just one of five major events they host worldwide. I want to give my readers a chance to grab preferred seating before these ads run (they'll run the next four months) -- here's   a link to the ad.

Here are the authors and their books:

Geoffrey Moore -- Crossing The Chasm: Marketing and Selling Disruptive Products to Mainstream Customers; Inside the Tornado: Strategies for Developing, Leveraging, and Surviving Hypergrowth Markets; Dealing with Darwin: How Great Companies Innovate at Every Phase of Their Evolution; Living on the Fault Line: Managing for Shareholder Value in Any Economy

Dr. Robert Cialdini -- Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion

Fred Reichheld -- The Loyalty Effect: The Hidden Force Behind Growth, Profits, and Lasting Value; The Ultimate Question: Driving Good Profits and True Growth

Paul Orfalea, founder of Kinkos -- Copy This!: Lessons from a Hyperactive Dyslexic who Turned a Bright Idea Into One of America's Best Companies

Steven Berlin Johnson -- Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software; Everything Bad is Good for You

Kaihan Krippendorff -- The Art of the Advantage: 36 Strategies to Seize the Competitive Edge

Verne Harnish -- Mastering the Rockefeller Habits: What You Must Do to Increase the Value of Your Growing Firm

Here's a link to detailed information on each of these speakers -- all top in their respective fields.

Come spend two days in Las Vegas October 23 -- 24 and fill your brain with the latest in business thinking -- a way to read 12 important books to fuel your business.

SPECIAL NOTE TO EO Members -- bring your team to Las Vegas for two days, then send them back and stay on for EO's 20th anniversary celebration which starts the same afternoon we finish the Growth Summit. And if this is too long to be out of the office (hey, the measure of a leader is the performance   of their company in their absence!) -- send your team to the two day without you -- they'll get a couple outstanding days of education and you can follow with the EO University.

*Larger teams get the best seats. Seats for teams of equal size are assigned based on earliest date of registration.

Comments

[Amy Madsen]

If any of your readers are interested in more info on Net Promoter by Fred Reichheld, we invite them to check out his blog: http://netpromoter.typepad.com/fred_reichheld/