The Agile Scaleup

Jim Collins on Fannie Mae and Circuit City; Mastery Disciplines; Front Tables Reserved

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Urgent Media Request from FORTUNE Small Business Magazine -- May 27 deadline -- looking for small business owners/CEOs who have cut their own salaries (permanently or temporarily) sometime in the last two years to help keep the business running and seen positive results. They are looking for upbeat stories, told by people who are willing to be honest about their experiences. They are NOT looking for start-up stories where the entrepreneur didn't take a salary for a couple years. If you think you fit the bill, or know of anyone who does, please email Megan Erickson at [email protected].

What Jim Collins Say About Circuit City and Fannie Mae -- Two of the "Good to Great" companies, many have wondered what Jim has to say about these failures. He dedicates a long passage in his new book, How the Mighty Fall, defending Good to Great -- and he shares some thoughts in a major Sunday NY Times piece. To quote Jim from the article "Just because a company falls doesn't invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best."Take five minutes and read this article more for an insight into Jim Collins the person, how he writes, hires assistants, his personal goals, and his amazing discipline.

Sleep and Time Logs -- among Jim's disciplines are to make sure he sleeps enough, so he remains creative, and that he spends at least 50% of his time on creative work. He went to a sleep lab to understand his sleeping patterns and has found that he needs 70 to 75 hours of sleep over a ten day period, so he keeps a sleep log (I think I'm running short myself and I'm going to track for a few weeks). To track his creative time, he keeps a stopwatch in his pocket which tracks three times -- his creative time, his teaching time, and his "other" time. To understand "mastery" take five minutes and read the NY Times article about Jim -- lessons in there for all of us.

Only 18 Speeches per Year -- notes the article "Mr. Collins also is quite practiced at saying 'no.' Requests pour in every week for him to give speeches to corporations and trade associations. It could be a bustling sideline, given that he commands a top-tier fee of $65,000 to dispense his wisdom. But he will give only 18 speeches this year, and about a third of them will be pro bono for nonprofit groups. "BTW, one of those top-tier speeches is at our upcoming Growth Summit, October 20 -- 21, Dallas, TX. Joining Jim will be four other best-selling authors.

Private Luncheon with Jim Collins -- companies that send an executive team of four or more to the Growth Summit will receive a seat at a private luncheon with Jim Collins (eight or more will receive two seats).

Front Ten Tables Already Reserved -- instead of playing games with early bird discounts, etc., we're more like a rock concert -- the earlier you reserve a seat (simple deposit of $250) and the more seats you reserve, the closer your table is to the stage. Companies have already reserved the front ten tables. Reserve your seats and the balance isn't due until Sept 20 (help you save cash), so grab the best seats now.

June 1 Full Page Ad for Growth Summit Reaches over 1 Million CEOs in FSB magazine -- we usually get a big spike in reservations when the ad hits. We want you to have preferential seating -- so reserve seats now and beat the crowd. Here's a link to the ad

How the Mighty Fall -- It's time to grab market share and gain a leg-up on our competition. It's been over 70 years since we've had similar market conditions. In 48 hours we'll give you the ideas, tools, and techniques to take advantage of this opportunity. It's the bold that win during times like this, not the faint at heart. Come join a growing list of winners at our upcoming Growth Summit 2009.

"Awesome Summit. We now have 14 things we must do to be massively successful in the next 24 mos. The Summit is responsible for about half of them!"
	Paul Taylor, CEO Webmarketing 123

Growth Summit Sponsors: American Airlines, American Express, AFLAC and Pitney Bowes

Boring CEOs More Effective; Getty Habits; Stunning Home Videos

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

"The individual who wants to reach the top in business must appreciate the might of the force of habit and must understand that practices are what create habits. He must be quick to break those habits that can break him and hasten to adopt those practices that will become the habits that help him achieve the success he desires."
	J. Paul Getty 1892-1976, American Oil Tycoon

Slightly Boring CEOs More Effective -- David Brooks, one of my favorite columnists in the NY Times, penned an excellent summary of some recent research on CEO effectiveness this week. Seems people skills are overrated and execution/persistence more important -- it's been my experience as well. Take three minutes and read this important column -- and he ties it to Jim Collins work -- hopefully you picked up a copy of Jim's new book that came out on Tuesday -- I'm just now reading it

Execution and Organizational Skills -- and my favorite paragraph in the article "What mattered, it turned out, were execution and organizational skills. The traits that correlated most powerfully with success were attention to detail, persistence, efficiency, analytic thoroughness and the ability to work long hours."

Clear Direction and Incremental Efficiency Gains -- Brook's continues "The market seems to want C.E.O.'s to offer a clear direction for their companies. There's a tension between being resolute and being flexible. The research suggests it's more important to be resolute, even at the cost of some flexibility. The second thing the market seems to want from leaders is a relentless and somewhat mind-numbing commitment to incremental efficiency gains." Remember, this is for big company CEOs, who are more likely hired-guns vs. the original entrepreneur -- keep this in perspective. Smaller firms often have to be nicer to people in order to attract and keep top talent -- and entrepreneurs often hire CEOs/Presidents to fulfill the above functions as the company gets bigger -- it depends on your own ability to follow habits of success.

How to Engage Your Entire Organization in Driving Business Results -- in an article entitled the same, Gazelles coach Kevin Lawrence shares how Victorian Epicure (blended spices), founded by Sylvie Rochette in 1991, uses Quarterly Themes to provide clear direction and drive incremental efficiency gains -- one of the reasons why she runs one of the largest woman-owned companies in Canada helping 5000 women across Canada to run their own businesses.

In & Out in 72 -- one of their quarterly themes focused on a serious issue customers were having in getting their orders just before Christmas. In order to drive home the need to deliver orders in less than three days, they called the theme "In & Out in 72." And to counterbalance the concern that increased delivery speed (Process) might hurt accuracy (effecting customer satisfaction -- People), they also declared that delivery accuracy would need to be at least 97%. This is why there are two Critical Numbers listed on the new One-Page Strategic Plan, one that impacts the people/reputation side of the business and one that counterbalances and impacts the process/productivity side of the business.

Bold Move -- as a way to drive home the theme and put some visible heat on the company to meet these new aggressive delivery goals, the team created a series of ads which they sent to their external sales consultants -- here's a link to these clever ads. The final ad entitled "Period5" ran after the end of the quarter to acknowledge accomplishment of the goal. Again, read Kevin's short article to get an excellent example of using Critical Numbers and a Quarterly Theme to drive performance.

Pixability's Discipline (and Outstanding Home Videos) -- and this note from Bettina Hein, Founder & CEO of Pixability who's firm takes amateur home videos and makes them into stunning custom home videos -- check out these before and after videos. Notes Hein "We've been using the Daily Huddle for 2 months now and have integrated it not only with our Quarterly Themes/Goals but also with a management methodology called Agile that was originally designed for software development teams. We're not developing software at Pixability but we've found the methodology works wonders for us."

Iterate More Quickly -- continues Hein, "Agile involves:

	1) creating a 'backlog' of 'stories' (things that need to get done)
	2) dividing the quarter into 2-week sprints
	3) deciding in a 2-weekly planning meeting what everyone will be working on (2hrs.)
	4) all those stories go up on our "Scrum Board"
	5) every day we meet in front of the Scrum Board for Huddle to discuss numbers, progress and bottlenecks/blockages
	6) at the end of the 2-week sprint we have a retrospective meeting (max 1hr.) to measure our 'velocity' (how many stories we got done) and to discuss learnings.

This process has made us so much more productive and connected. It has also helped us correct mistakes earlier and iterate more quickly. It makes my job as a manager much easier because everyone's stories/tasks are in plain view for all to see and everyone sees how they progress on the board. The group is the manager and the group feels much more responsible for getting everything done."

What a Beautiful Thing -- Kelly Freeman, co-owner of Network People, a Microsoft Solution Provider and IT Services firm, adds to the importance of Quarterly Priorities and Daily Huddles. In a recent note to me, Freeman notes "To our daily huddles, this morning we posted scoreboards for our Quarterly Priorities around our meeting room (Baseball theme- if we make the goal we are taking the team to dinner and a Tampa Bay Rays Game). Just before receiving your e-newsletter about daily huddles I asked the guys to rate the helpfulness of our daily meetings on a scale of 1 -- 10. Average score was a 7, but all agreed that it was helpful for the company as a whole. Later in the day I overheard the guys discussing between themselves the real goal behind our metrics. An hour later I had a phone call with a team member letting me know about an accomplishment toward our quarterly priority. And later I found 3 team members working together on accomplishing another.

What a beautiful thing it is to see alignment...for the first time in 10+ years."

Quarterly Themes and Daily Huddles -- a powerful way to drive incremental improvement and discipline -- just like the best CEOs of large companies! Keep implementing the Rockefeller Habits.

Jim Collins New Book; Best Guerilla Marketing Campaign; Come Drink

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Jim Collins New Book -- his long awaited next book, How the Mighty Fall And Why Some Companies Never Give In, arrives in bookstores (and ships from Amazon) next Tuesday, May 19. And an excerpt from the book will be in the May 22 Business Week that hits the newsstands tomorrow (Friday, May 15). This is the new material Collins, author of Good to Great and Built to Last, will be sharing in a four hour presentation at our Growth Summit Oct 20 -- 21 in Dallas. Mark your calendars.

Chocolate Covered Grasshoppers -- talk about "lumpy mail" -- GotVMail just changed their name to Grasshopper and to highlight the change and guerilla market their company (they provide virtual phone systems for entrepreneurs) they FedEx'd out 25,000 chocolate covered grasshoppers to influential entrepreneurs and received Fox News coverage. And it's working. I spoke to the EO Chapter in Chicago yesterday where several members were talking about the chocolate covered grasshoppers they had just received and whether or not they had tried them!

Entrepreneurs Can Change the World -- CEO David Hauser and the Grasshopper team also produced an excellent video on how entrepreneurs can change the world, part of a viral marketing campaign -- take a few minute to watch this inspiring piece and share with other entrepreneurs and your children. BTW, this is the same company that got actor Gary Busey to do the YouTube video piece on their core values and uses Post-it-Notes to share their values around the office -- they continue to find clever ways to market internally and externally. Thanks to their Gazelles' coach Les Rubenovitch for alerting us to these innovations.

Looking to Expand Into New Zealand? -- Rockefeller Habits practitioner and fan, Adrian Low, is between gigs and looking to see if any other companies aligned with our techniques is looking to expand into New Zealand. Low would like to help you rapidly grow and expand your business in one of the most beautiful spots on the planet. Contact Low at [email protected].

6 Critical Success Factors for Managing a Successful Acquisition Program -- white paper available. Gary Moon, BOGer, Rockefeller Habits practitioner, and M&A guru and his team have developed their buy-side acquisition program methodology across hundreds of transactions including best practices from today's most prolific acquirers, developed specifically with Gazelles mid-market client companies in mind. Here's the link.

Should you be considering acquisitions today? Most of our client companies have done well in identifying new markets, developing new revenue streams, and growing their companies organically -- but they often overlook an equally important path to growth - Acquisitions. The more successful a company gets, the more likely they will need to acquire in order to develop new and varied streams of growth and earnings. When the economy turns and the recovery shifts into full swing, the playing field in many industries will have shifted, sometimes dramatically. Companies can either participate in this reordering, or risk watching it happen around them. Acquisitions in today's environment create an unprecedented opportunity to separate from your competition in this time of uncertainty.

Frequent buyers consistently outperform non-buyers -- Bain and McKinsey studies have shown that companies that pursue an active balanced program of acquisitions create more shareholder value than those with passive, or no M&A strategies. They also show that constant acquirers - or those that buy consistently through economic cycles, and recession acquirers -- or those that increase their buying in recessionary times, consistently outperform growth buyers -- those which buy principally in growth periods.

Yet, why do such a high portion of acquisitions fail? According to many studies, up to 70% of acquisitions fail to create value for owners, yet it is virtually impossible to build a world-class company through organic growth alone. Most firms should engage in disciplined, strategy driven deal making, which usually means both buying and selling, and need to bring on specific deal expertise to increase probability of success. Get some help by finding the right "who."

Are you Playing Not to Lose, Or Are You Playing to Win -- My Last Two-Day Rockefeller Habits Workshop This Season -- June 9 -- 10, DC. Before I move the family to Barcelona in August I'll be personally leading a two-day Rockefeller Habits workshop. You have a six to twelve month window to grab market share and take advantage of your competitors' weakened business. I'll be working with you on five strategies for doubling revenue in the next twelve months and providing specific updated tools for reducing by 80% the time it takes for you to manage the business so you can spend more time on market-facing activities. Join me in DC (next to Dulles airport) June 9 -- 10.

Most Important Vote You'll Cast This Week -- May 10 Deadline

"...keeping you (and the less fortunate) great"

HEADLINES:

Most Important Vote You'll Cast This Week -- Deadline May 10! -- it won't cost you a penny while massively helping FreePlay Foundation reach four million orphans throughout Africa with vital education and safe light by which to read and learn -- and it will just take 15 seconds. Vote Now and pass this along to your network and get them to vote (get all your employees to vote) -- please, please, please take the time to vote for FreePlay Foundation and help them win one million dollars from Twittacause. http://www.twittacause.com/vote-for-a-cause.php -- they are currently #9 -- we need to get them to #1. Why am I helping them? Keep reading.

Chosen from over 100,000 non-profits, red-hot Twitter chose FreePlay as one of only fifteen charities to compete for the prize money. And FreePlay is the smallest of the charities by a factor of ten -- it's David vs. Goliath -- just the kind of race we like to support -- and this money will massively help FreePlay "teach a child to fish" vs. just provide another handout in Africa -- it's about education.

You Don't Need to Join Twitter, You Just Need to Vote -- if you skipped over the first paragraph because you're not a twitter user, please go back and vote -- you don't have to be a twitter user or have an account to vote.

Rory Stear is One of Us -- A "Gazelle" -- founder of South Africa-based FreePlay Energy, they develop and manufacture human-energy powered devices including radios and flashlights (torches). Rory is an MIT "Birthing of Giants" graduate and long-standing practitioner of the Rockefeller Habits. I've personally flown to Capetown, South Africa, and spent time leading his management team through various strategic planning sessions -- so this is very personal! And his firm was one of the original participants in our Master of Business Dynamics (MBD) program. He's a serious student of business.

Nelson Mandela helped them open their first factory -- and FreePlay Energy and their Foundation has attracted a virtual who's who of the business world as supporters. It was through Rory that I had the honor to meet Anita Roddick, the late founder of The Body Shop and the most famous woman entrepreneur on the planet -- and Rory is that one that hosted her visit to MIT for our graduate executive program -- one of the highlights of my life as a business educator. Anita's husband is still actively involved with FreePlay.

Kristine Pearson, Rory's wife, heads-up FreePlay Foundation -- they've helped hundreds of thousands of orphans throughout Africa through the donation of human and solar-powered radios and flashlights -- and Kristine and the foundation have won numerous awards around the world for the kind of charity that multiplies itself and lasts a lifetime through education. Note's Kristine:

Radio remains the most important communication medium in Africa. For six years the Lifeline radio has enhanced the lives of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable children by providing educational programming plus practical information on health, farming, and much more. Up to 40 children share one radio!

This prize will also help us light-up Africa. Children can study, read, walk safely at night and guard against dangers. Our clean energy solar-powered, wind-up Lifelights will help end the use of dangerous candles and toxic kerosene.

Vote now and send this on to your friends and networks. You can vote multiple times by using different web browsers. Thank you very much!

Click NOW: http://www.twittacause.com/vote-for-a-cause.php- They're #9 in the navy box.

Please Hurry -- again, the deadline is this Sunday, May 10. Have all your employees vote and send out to your network ASAP. For those on Twitter, send out the following post:

Educate orphaned African girls through technology! Thanks! Vote for @freeplayfound on @Twittacause http://tinyurl.com/dc3vgz -Pls RT.

Favorite Quote; Four E's of Marketing; What Zappos CEO is Reading; Swine Flu Thoughts

"...keeping you great (and healthy)"

HEADLINES:

Thoughts on the Swine Flu Scare and Prevention below, but first...

"Discounting is the crack cocaine for businesses today" -- this was my favorite quote from the Sales & Marketing Summit -- shared by Mark Burton, co-author of Pricing with Confidence. Instead, companies can use a "good, better, best" strategy to provide various pricing levels without simply giving away margin. See Burton's blog post from yesterday on how to price segment a market and protect your premium brand pricing. I really do like his blog -- it has me thinking more about pricing than I ever have in the past.

Four "E's" of Marketing -- the four "P's" of marketing (Product, Price, Place, and Promotion) are old news. They've been replaced with the four "E's" -- Experience, Exchange, Everyplace, Evangelism. If you only glance through one article this week, read Ogilvy's short and excellent article on the four "E's" and then discuss how you apply at your weekly marketing meeting (you have one, right?). And here's a link to an accompanying slide show. BTW, Ogilvy is doing exactly the kind of educational marketing Chet Holmes? emphasizes we should all be doing.

Four Lessons from 12 Recessions -- Victor Cheng's 9 minute interview from last week's Sales & Marketing Summit is now posted -- BTW, the Summit received our highest ratings ever from the 240 mid-market leaders that participated. Go to www.gazelles.tv and scroll down the right hand column (you'll also see Chet Holmes, David Meerman Scott, and other interviews). Victor shares the four lessons learned from companies that thrived during the last 12 recessions/depressions. Watch and discuss during your weekly "Council" meeting. During his excellent LIVE presentation I particularly liked the FedEx story which exemplified the importance of selling more of what people need in a recession (Disney launched Mickey Mouse during the Great Depression -- the need for entertainment/distraction).

FedEx was founded during the 1973 recession. To reduce costs, companies ramped up their use of new computer technology to replace people. In turn, companies like IBM promised quick service, since many of these systems were mission critical. This meant that if a small part was needed they would put someone on a flight to hand carry it to its destination. Fred Smith, founder of FedEx, figured out how to ship these critical parts overnight for a lot less, thus FedEx was really a cost savings strategy moving around critical parts companies needed "more of" during the recession. What do your clients need more of that you can provide?

Watching a Master Salesman at Work -- Chet Holmes' (author of The Ultimate Sales Machine which is still the #1 sales management book) four-hour presentation from the Sales Summit is now available to watch with your team during your monthly management meeting (you have this rhythm of learning as well?). He includes the single most important trait of a successful sales organization! For those in attendance, I know you'll never forget -- I've caught myself referring to this trait several times since. And though we were criticized by some for Chet's "extra" 23 minute sales presentation at the end, I marveled at the brilliance of his education-based sales approach and close -- it was great to see a master at work.

200 million going to 500 million by year end -- that's the expected growth of Facebook. David Meerman Scott (author of The New Rules of Marketing and PR) was also brilliant, practical, and specific on what companies must do to take advantage of the web 2.0 tools at our disposal. David's two-hour presentation is now available to watch (and rewatch!). As a result of his presentation, I'm looking to bring on a 19 year old intern this summer (they get it) to focus on nothing but our social networking strategy. I also purchased a Flip Video camcorder to make it super easy to capture more video for YouTube postings.

What Zappo's CEO is Reading -- approaching $1 billion in revenue (our family is a contributor!), this online shoe retailer is teaching all of us about customer service. So what a surprise when Jeff Schmeck, CEO of Miner Fleet Management brought to my attention that in the latest major article on Zappos (May issue of Inc) that the reporter noted a copy of Mastering the Rockefeller Habits on the desk of CEO Tony Hsieh (pronounced "Shay"). And thanks to Erik Darmstetter and his Salesby5 team that got Tony interested in the book. Here's a link to the mention in the article.

Now the Swine Flu...

Vitamin D3 is Critical to Flu Prevention -- the main way our body produces Vitamin D is via exposure to sunlight and it's a critical vitamin in protecting against the flu in addition to Vitamin C and Zinc. It's why more people get the flu in the winter time. Google "Vitamin D flu prevention" and make-up your own mind, but our family boosts our D in the winter.

Swine Flu Prevention Guide -- Marc Isaacson, CEO of Village Green Apothecary, EO Member, and long-standing Rockefeller Habits practitioner, has published a short four-page Swine Flu Prevention Guide. He's also providing his employees various immune boosting nutrients at no cost. Please share this article with your employees. Thanks Mark!

More died from the swine flu vaccine than died from swine flu -- the last swine flu scare was in 1976. And all H1N1 flu's are descendants of the 1918 pandemic strain where it was calculated that 50 million -- 100 million died within 18 months (why everyone is so freaked). However, it's reported that scientists recently found that the flu didn't kill people, it was secondary strep infections, for which we are well prepared today in developed countries -- 2009 isn't 1918. In turn, Tamiflu (wow, to get a mention by the U.S. President Wednesday night was golden) is actually banned in Japan for children -- and has been found to cause reactions that are as severe as the flu it's trying to prevent in adults. Anyway, here's an excellent piece that puts the whole thing in perspective (3000 people die each day from malaria, but there's no money to be made curing malaria) -- and why there's big money in continuing to scare people -- frankly, I'm getting a little tired of all the billions we're throwing at problems.