"...keeping you great"
HEADLINES:
Companies that grow will be those that can out-duel the competition -- where victory is won at the margins, where knowledge gives you the nanosecond advantage needed to win.
200 Interviews -- over the past two weeks I've emailed and/or phoned over 200 CEOs -- our best clients and most avid learners -- and the great news, most are winning and winning big -- buying up competitors in Chapter 7, grabbing market share and just simply out-thinking and out-executing. I'll be sharing their stories over the next few weeks. BTW, my favorite comment so far "I'll let you know how later, but we have more revenue than we can handle right now" -- this from one of our longest-standing "super-learners" (more on super-learners in my next email), a Michigan-based manufacturer centered in one of the toughest industries! First case study below.
Pat Lencioni's latest "Point of View" on the economy and leadership -- worth reading given his prominence as one of the world's top five business thought leaders of this century (Collins, Gladwell, Taleb, and Godin being the other four from my perspective) -- and excellent background information for those watching him LIVE next week. Take two minutes to read -- here's a link.
Pat's LIVE webcast next week -- Wednesday, Jan 28, 11:58am -- 2pm EST -- also available on-demand for 30 days, so no worries if you want to schedule at your team's convenience -- sign-up -- details under DETAILS below.
Revenue up 23%, Profit up 22.6% in 2008 for 300 employee, Virginia-based $70 million HPTi -- in an email this week from Tim Keenan, CEO, he notes "I am on a panel for SmartCEO on February 4th that addresses the subject of how to succeed in a bad market to 250 CEO's. The heart of my advice is educate your team, give them tools to fight through this market. Cutting education is like cutting your business throat. In hard times it is ever more important to seek education and insight. We have already signed up for the webcasts and are arranging logistics at our end to make maximum use of this vehicle to continue to educate our leadership team."
Our results are sustained over the past five years and are not a "secret sauce," continues Keenan. "We took from experts the parts of their advice that fit our culture and left the rest for others. Our first stop Jim Collins and next was Rockefeller Habits. We took the strategic planning and added TopGrading with our twist to build a workforce that consistently receives praise from our customers. Next we hyper-focused on Customer Satisfaction and were able to raise our scores from the high eighties to high nineties for reference accounts and 94% overall for all accounts. So I would say we put in a strategic plan and stuck to it. Combine that with the National Capital Business Ethics Award for large business category 2008, CMMI Level 3, Senate Productivity Quality Award Plaque of Excellence level (2006, 2007 and 2008) and the Company as a Responsive Employer Award winner (2007 and 2008). The awards are just pieces of glass but the process for obtaining these awards requires detailed management consulting with excellent feedback reports that enabled our continuous improvement and guidance for our investment programs. These programs are 1) Ethics 2) Process 3) Quality and 4) Employee Environment. If any firm can balance these with customers you will succeed. Good luck to Gazelles in these hard times and you can count on us for continuing investment in our education. Thanks Tim."
Cheetah CEOs Outperform Lamb CEOs -- please take two minutes to read Brad Smart's (Topgrading guru) latest blog reporting on University of Chicago's research of 225 topgraded CEOs. In essence, they found that CEOs who were extremely results-oriented delivered much better financial results than CEOs high in Emotional Intelligence. It doesn't mean EI isn't important and critical, but EI without a results-oriented focus (Pat Lencioni's top Dysfunction) is doomed!
First Time for Everything -- several of you let me know that my Wed. insight inspired you to contact your US Senator for the first time! I can assure you that they take contact from constituents seriously because it so rarely happens. Engage.
Rockefeller Habits Vancouver SOLD OUT -- yes, we rarely say this because we can always fit in more people and I don't like cheesy marketing tactics, however, we did physically run out of space as of today for Vancouver -- our apologies (maybe the word is getting around that our stuff works. We stand ready to lend a hand bringing you practical tools to grow your business -- it's our passion and purpose!