The Agile Scaleup

Expert Brains; Latest Book; Future of Economy; Prep for Children

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES: (Happy Australia Day! yesterday) 

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

"We" by Rudy Karsan -- just released on Tuesday, immediately order Rudy Karsan and Kevin Kruse's book entitled We: How to Increase Performance and Profits through Engagement and turn to the introduction and take the quick "we" test. Rudy is co-founder and CEO of Kenexa, one of the globe's top HR consultancy firms. He's also a dear friend and avid practitioner of the Rockefeller Habits. With over 2000 employees across twenty global offices, Rudy based the book on their real life work with millions of employees and formal surveys of over 2 million workers. The book is chock full of practical tools and tests.

What Sets Experts Apart from Novices -- a fascinating article this week in the NY Times looking at the brain wave patterns of expert vs. immediate vs. beginner chess and shogi (like chess) players. In essence, what sets them apart is pattern recognition. And there are two areas of the brains of professionals (vs. novices) that were excited consistently: the precuneus, where perception and high level thinking occur (makes sense); and the caudate nucleus, thought to be responsible for the formation and execution of habit and for "goal directed behavior" - this was the surprise finding. It seems that professionals are great "by habit" (vs. nature) and can make decisions almost unconsciously, when driven by goals. This is the scientific reason why the Rockefeller Habits have such a powerful impact on brains and companies. Take three minutes and read the article to get more details.

Bringing In The Right #2 -- with Eric Schmidt stepping aside as CEO of Google and co-founder Larry Page stepping up to the role, Fortune wrote an excellent article on the importance of finding the right "second pair of hands" to help out in growing a company. Entitled "Expanding Management: The delicate art of sharing control" take three minutes and scan the article. The key is test driving the potential #2 for a year before hiring them. BTW, Google's founders did the same with Schmidt, putting him on the board for almost a year before putting him in the CEO role. And here's a link to my article on the same subject and why it's best to hire someone you've worked with for quite some time.

Strong Case for Global Optimism -- the 41st World Economic Forum in Davos kicked off yesterday. Among all the talk of doom and gloom, Time Magazine's International Editor Michael Elliott wrote an encouraging blog yesterday making a strong case for optimism both in the short and long term. As I've been sharing with audiences the past two years, there's an elephant moving through the global economic snake and that's the 1.4 billion people moving into the middle class - effectively increasing the size of the market for goods and services by 77%. This next ten years is a time to "make hay" as we liked to say when I was living in Kansas!

Preparing our Children -- WARNING: this is blatant sales pitch!! I'm recruiting 10 entrepreneurial American and Asian families, who want to expose their children to a vibrant international community, to move to Barcelona for a year and enroll their children (nursery through grade 12) in the Ben Franklin International School (BFIS). With a mission to educate global citizens, BFIS presently has 540 students from 40 nationalities (my children's best friends are from Russian, India, Italy, UK, Sweden, Netherlands, and Spain). And all four have become quite proficient in Spanish in just a year. Barcelona is also a great city from which to launch your business into Europe and Asia, putting you six time zones closer to the "wild, wild east" in one of the safest cities in the world (our children run free all over the city).

Experiences vs. Stuff -- besides, why not live a little while working hard - you're not getting any younger. They say it's better to spend money on experiences you'll remember a lifetime vs. buying more stuff that sits in the garage. You'll also meet some of the neatest entrepreneurs (it's a huge tech community) and executives who have the freedom and time to take a year and enjoy the culture of the region, including honorary membership in the "slackers" organization. Come over for a year and we'll show you around. Rent is relatively inexpensive and the school is moderately priced, less than most private education in the US.

5 Business Myths; Best Place To Work; Tim Cook Apple

  "...keeping you great"

HEADLINES: 

European Growth Summits -- mark your calendar 17th May Barcelona; 18th May Amsterdam. The program is complete, featuring Alexander Osterwalder, whose book Business Model Generation, has been a huge hit around the world.

5 Business Myths -- my latest Fortune magazine column is on the newsstands and online. Insight readers featured include Jennifer Olson Welding, Steven Krane, Dave McLurg, John Warrillow, and Bettina Hein -- thank you for contributing your stories.

So What Are They -- here are 5 Business Myths I highlight:

1.        Gross Margins Will Increase as You Get Bigger

2.        Competitors are Always Unfriendly

3.        You Know Your Market

4.        As CEO, You're the First to Know

5.        One-Size Doesn't Fit All

Best Companies to Work For 2011 -- congrats to Rackspace for making the list once again in 2011. Graham Weston, CEO, will be keynoting the Fortune Leadership Summit May 10 - 11, Houston. The top five Best Places to Work: SAS, Boston Consulting Group, Wegmans, Google, and NetApp. Here's a link to the full list.

Tim Cook, Apple COO -- with Steve Jobs medical leave headlining the business news this week, I thought I would take a look at Tim Cook's Auburn commencement address this past spring and compare it to Steve Jobs famous Stanford address. Interestingly, they both reference the power of intuition. And I didn't realize Cook, who will take over as the top leader at Apple, is an Industrial Engineer. He at least gets design. Hope Steve comes back. Start video at 4:38 to save some time.

10 Questions for Internet Businesses -- OK, I'm really behind the curve on this, but maybe some of you missed this as well. Mary Meeker, the highly acclaimed tech analyst for Morgan Stanley, outlined 10 questions internet execs should ask and answer last November. The 49 slides are full of useful data. I particularly like slides 16, 17, and 21.

6 New Tax Breaks -- take three minutes to scan this latest CNN/Money article on six tax breaks you might utilize in filing your 2010 taxes -- and take advantage of in 2011. Some are for companies under 25 employees, others are available to mid-market firms as well. Here are 5 of the 6 I think apply to you:

1.        Healthcare Tax Credit -- as the title implies, but for companies under 25 employees

2.        Section 179 Provision -- write-off full amount of certain equipment and software purchases - up to $500,000

3.        Accelerated Depreciation -- applies to a broader range of items than the Section 179 provision

4.        Depreciation on Business Car or Truck -- just for 2010, but a nice additional amount

5.        General Business Credit -- certain business deductions apply to the AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax)

China Inflation; In Search of a Theme; Calm Action; Resurrecting Anthony

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES: 

China's Inflation 10% Last Year -- though not expected to have an immediate impact on global prices, with both the US and China printing money as fast as they can you can expect upward pressure on prices. Plus China's one-child rule is catching up with them, as they are running low on factory workers, pushing up wages. Take four minutes and read this NY Times article and then watch your own margins closely in 2011 as your underlying costs might start to creep up.

"Beat the Fockers" -- this is Barcelona-based Careesma's latest Quarterly Theme. One of Europe's leading online job boards, as part of their effort to present qualified vs. just a large quantity of candidates to employers, in the current quarter they are focused on reducing the mismatches between candidates and job offers, i.e. reducing the number of candidates that do not meet the criteria required by the company.

In Search of a Theme -- notes Sebastian Ross, CEO of Careesma, "In our search for a theme for this objective, we Googled the word 'Mismatch'. What came up was the seminal movie "Meet the Fockers." It is hard to think of a bigger Mismatch between fathers-in-law like the hippie-styled Bernie and Rozalin Focker and the uptight Jack and Dina Byrnes. By thinking of this famous mismatch we know what we don't want and gave this quarter's theme the name - "Beat the Fockers."

The Little Fockers -- continues Ross, "As luck would have it, just recently a new sequel of the Focker movie series came out: "The Little Fockers". So we thought there is no better way to kick-off our Mismatch-theme than to watch together how the 3rd generation of Fockers and Byrnes produce further real life mismatches." To support the theme throughout the quarter, key metrics measuring mismatches will be tracked and posted on a weekly basis. Concludes Ross, "A theme transforms a mere managerial goal into a company-wide mission by connecting it not just to our heads but to our hearts." What is your theme this quarter or for 2011.

Family Theme for 2011 -- Maria Sipka, founder of Linqia, and her husband JC Duarte (many of you know him via EO and know both of them from their famous Indian wedding at the EO U in Delhi), set a family theme each year. One year it was "Perseverance"; for 2011 it's "New Beginnings." Over dinner last Friday night they described how the theme catalyzes their decisions and helps them to maintain perspective and focus for the year - much better than New Year's Resolutions or goals. So at our Sunday family meeting to kick off 2011, we reviewed each of our vision boards (even our 7 year-old has one) and set a family theme for 2011 -- "Calm Action." We've already referred to it several times this week in making decisions. Think about setting a 2011 theme for your family as well as for your business.

What Really Matters in Life -- speaking of family, read Resurrecting Anthony: A True Story of Courage & Destination, the real life story of the Cole family's rehabilitation of their son Anthony after he suffered a heart attack and brain damage at age 12. Released on Tuesday, here's the testimonial I wrote for the book ... "Powerful lessons in letting go, being present, failure, belief, goals, perseverance, and making the toughest of decisions -- expressed in a way that can only be shared by parents who have eighteen months to save their child. It's a story I shared last night around the dinner table with our own children. Thank you Linda and Tony for this honest account of your family's journey with your son." It's a great read, helping you see what really matters in life.

Date Change -- Family Bike Trip -- please join my family June 25 - July 1 on the island of Sardegna, off the coast of Italy, for a multi-sport (biking, hiking, kayaking) vacation hosted by Lauren Hefferon and her family. Lauren is the owner of Italy's #1 bike touring company and a devoted practitioner of the Rockefeller Habits -- though we promise not to talk too much business on the trip. She changed the dates and reduced the price somewhat from what I sent out last time.

Saving Your Marriage; Selling Sunshine; Quarterly Vacations; Australia Summit

  "...keeping you great"

HEADLINES: 

Australian Growth Summit -- Join me Feb 15 - 16, Sydney, along with Tom Peters, Liz Wiseman, Brian Halligan, Alan Miltz, Peter Rowe, and Frank Romano. Here's a link.

How to Keep Your Business from Killing Your Marriage -- do any of you have ideas/ experience? My next Fortune column is focused on this topic. Regular date night? Not recommend going into business with your spouse? Email-free vacations? What has worked for you? Please send me your ideas -- and you don't have to write paragraphs, just share the idea and we'll give you a call to get the details.

Brad Feld Saved His Marriage -- last month I read Brad's outstanding book Do More Faster. Aimed at tech start-ups, there are plenty of lessons for all of us in the book given Brad's background as a serial entrepreneur and well-known tech investor (and founder of two EO chapters!). In the book he discusses work-life balance and how a lack of it contributed to a failed first marriage and his current wife, Amy, almost calling it quits. Here's a link to what he did - which also served as a short chapter in his book.

Spend Time Away -- if you're looking for a New Years' Resolution, consider one of the ways Brad rebuilt his marriage and found more work-life balance. To quote Brad "Amy and I take a weeklong vacation each quarter (which we fondly refer to as "Qx Vacation" depending on which quarter of the year it is) where we completely disappear. No cell phone, no email, no computer, no conference calls - my assistant knows how to find me in case of an emergency; otherwise I'm completely unavailable for the week." If your business is five years old and it can't survive you leaving for a week each quarter, it's time to make changes.

Selling Sunshine -- Tony Hartl built one of the top US tanning salon chains, rocking the industry with legendary marketing and customer experience innovations. After 13 years in the business, he successfully sold to Palm Beach Tan. This week Tony's book (ALL proceeds donated to NFTE) about the experience was released. Entitled Selling Sunshine: 75 Tips, Tools, and Tactics for becoming a Wildly Successful Entrepreneur, the book details concrete and specific ideas that will help any business grow. I specifically liked Tip 67 "The Brand is in the Details." You'll enjoy reading about his journey and I guarantee you'll pick up one big idea for your own business.

7 Email Etiquette Tips For Business Introductions -- I spend a lot of time making business introductions via email. Mark Solon, managing partner of Highway 12 Ventures, shares 7 etiquette tips for handling these introductions in his latest Fortune article. I particularly like tips 2 and 7. Take 1 minute and skip the first few paragraphs of his article and scroll down to his short, succinct tips - worth the read!

How to Keep the Government From Killing Your Business -- and here's a link to my latest syndicated Growth Guy column where I suggest "5 Imperatives for the New Congress": Tort Reform; Reducing Corporate Taxes; Eliminate Credit Card Reporting; Drop Expat Tax; and Dramatically Reduce the Budget.