The Agile Scaleup

Great Month; Great People; Great Culture; Great Fullness; Barrett Ersek

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES: Replay Topgrading Webinar -- for those who missed last week's webinar on hiring great people, you can replay the 35 minute presentation. More info below...but first; Elon Musk's Incredible Month -- I wholeheartedly agree with BusinessWeek's notion that "No doubt (Elon Musk) has had one of the greatest months of any entrepreneur in a long, long while." From delivering cargo to the space station May 25 to the June 22 launch of the all-electric Tesla Model S sedan, Elon passed a couple major milestones in the span of 28 days. Add to the mix his focus on solar tech as Chairman of SolarCity, the leading residential solar provider in the U.S., and you have an entrepreneur swinging for the fences providing inspiration to all growth company leaders. Take two minutes to read this short BusinessWeek article and view their video. BTW, I had forgotten that Elon launched SpaceX back in June 2002, so it's been a ten year journey. Greatness takes time. Great Fullness Of Life -- THE favorite TED-like keynote at the FORTUNE Leadership Summit last month is now available for replay compliments of Gazelles - Barrett Ersek's 15 minute powerful presentation on gratefulness. Many business leaders find it hard to develop the right strategy to cope with uncertainty. In Barrett's concise and moving FREE Online seminar, named with a play on words, this CEO of Holganix offers insights into his own winning approach: Making gratitude a core value at his company. It's a strategy that has resulted in incredible abundance in his business and personal life. Watch this with your team and/or family over the weekend and start the second half of 2012 with an entirely new perspective. Thank you, Barrett, for your insight and wisdom. 8th Best Place to Work in Australia -- congratulations to Tristan White and his team at The Physio Co - this is their 4th time on the list in their 8 year history and they moved up from 12th place last year. Notes Tristan, "Our award-winning culture has been built by obsessing over our 4 core values. We hire, fire, reward & recognize by our core values every day. Obsessing over our core values make decisions easy. I have you & your book to thank for introducing me to the idea of creating a values-based business. Thank you so very much for inspiring me to create an enduring great company." Thank you, Tristan, for being a great "student" of business. Also congrats to Atlassian for making the Top 10 in Australia as well, another great global growth firm. Building a Great Culture -- as Tristan notes, the key to building a values-based company is aligning ALL your human resource (HR) systems (hiring, rewards, etc) around your core values. Here's a short "Growth Guy" column on eight ways to simplify your "People" systems and drive alignment using your core values. Please take 3 minutes to scan the article. Hiring Great People -- Mis-hires suck up time, effort, energy, AND MONEY! And there's only one methodology guaranteed to help you attract and hire "A" Players 90% of the time...Topgrading. If you want to find out more about Topgrading and how to implement it in your company, last week we reviewed 12 practical and easy to implement steps on a short webcast, see the replay.

Summer Reading; Summer Films; Summer Themes; Summer Recovery

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES: (celebrating the summer solstice for us northerners!)   Emotional Equations is a masterpiece by a master teacher. Philosopher/CEO Chip Conley peels away the thin veneer of let's pretend organizational life and introduces us to the very raw and tender emotional core of our human experience. While reading, I felt joy, delight, curiosity, insight, inspiration, amazement and, most of all, a much deeper understanding of my own inner life. Simple, yet profound...you really must read this book.   Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge Summer Hires -- reminder June 22, 2pm ET -- complimentary Topgrading webcast - overview of new 12 step process. Summer Read -- Hip entrepreneur Chip Conley's third book was released earlier this year. Emotional Equations is a quick read, but worthy of some deeper contemplation as he provides his formulas for happiness, regret, authenticity, and wisdom. Take it on vacation and read by the pool or beach. Copies are being sent to book club and Gazelles 200 members; and Chip is one of two celebrity CEOs keynoting the FORTUNE Leadership Summit Oct 23 - 24, Phoenix. BTW, Jim Kouzes, the famous co-author of The Leadership Challenge, my absolute favorite leadership book, is keynoting as well. Summer Quarterly Themes -- If you haven't already, check out GiveMore.com. They're creating some great stuff that will help you "adrenaline" your quarterly themes and team meetings. Short books and booklets, videos to kick off or open a meeting or event, complete meeting packages and cool reminders (really). No-fluff. No-fill. These are fresh messages by Sam Parker, bestselling author of 212 the extra degree that will help you create that special team of people that make good things happen. Check them out here..... Summer Review -- and this from Gazelles 200 member Maddock Douglas (courtesy of Wes Douglas) - a visual review of the recent FORTUNE Leadership Summit. He also creates a similar visual summary of each 9@9 daily huddle posted so everyone can review the highlights. Here's a link to a sample of these fun summaries. Summer Viewing Pleasure -- if you've not discovered serial entrepreneur Ted Leonsis's online venture called SnagFilms, you're missing some great free "edutainment" - a site hosting the best documentaries on every subject imaginable. Notes CEO Rick Allen, "We have a number of films telling interesting stories of entrepreneurs, in addition to Welcome to Macintosh - here are some examples: From the Quest series, we have a look at the advantages of private sector space missions; this 2009 film anticipates the success of the SpaceX Dragon mission. Here's the link to that film. Garbage Dreams tracks the efforts of three street entrepreneurs in Cairo, part of the world's largest garbage village. Members of a religious minority that provides most of the garbage collection for one of the world's largest cities - and these three entrepreneurs recycle nearly 100% of what they collect. We have three short films about women entrepreneurs : A woman entrepreneur's business in Afghanistan provides opportunities for other women in Kandahar Treasure; proving that entrepreneurs aren't all focusing on new technology, Letterpress Amy finds success in a slower approach; and eight Israeli widows create a unique cooperative in Pickles Inc. Young Agrarians tells the story of young farmers pioneering sustainable agriculture. Little Lady Fauntleroy is a very bizarre tale of what appears to be a child entrepreneurial prodigy who took Britain by storm in the 1990s for his exceptional talent at spotting valuable antiques in unlikely places. But the story only starts there and progressively becomes more jaw-dropping as each chapter unfolds. Summer Fatique -- feeling super run down? In response to my ongoing fanatical support of IV Vitamin C and other alternative health approaches - and in the spirit of "it takes a village of gurus" - this note from Lance Pederson, COO of Fairway America: "In January I went to a naturopathic doctor I found via the link you had sent with the database to get the Vitamin C IV's. I was feeling super run down and exhausted so I figured it was worth a shot. Our 7 year old daughter had just been diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis in November and it really hit us pretty hard. The doctor ended up diagnosing me with Adrenal Fatigue after running some tests. The treatment plan was weekly nutrient IV's (vitamin C, B vitamins, etc), hydrocortisone and some other herbal supplements to help repair the adrenals." Summer Recovery -- continues Pederson, "I made some good progress in many areas but I still was feeling like I had to talk myself into everything on a daily basis which isn't like me. A few weeks ago she decided to run another blood test to test my testosterone levels. The test came back that I had plenty of testosterone but my sex hormone binding globulin (SHBG) levels were elevated. I guess SHBG binds to testosterone which stops it from fulfilling its other functions. In affect you feel how you'd feel if you had low testosterone levels which isn't good! Summer Sleep -- concludes Pederson, "She ended up prescribing me with another supplement called Nettles Root. Within a day I was totally back to feeling like myself again. In fact, better than I've ever felt because along the way I overhauled my diet (Paleo), started exercising regularly (Crossfit), hired an ADHD coach to help me stay on track and forced myself to get 7 ½ hours of sleep a night. I'm now a firm believer in this whole "holistic" thing. It just proves that there is no such thing as a silver bullet. It is a combination of many different things that go into feeling your best so that you can be your best."

Hiring Talent - Topgrading Webinar Friday June 22 - 2pm ET

"...out-learning the competition" HEADLINES:   The toughest decisions in organizations are people decisions - hiring, firing, promotion, etc. These are the decisions that receive the least attention and are the hardest to unmake.   Peter Drucker June 22, 2pm ET -- complimentary Topgrading webcast - overview of new 12 step process. Biggest Chokepoint -- Mis-hires are the single biggest chokepoint in most businesses. And the number one methodology for hiring talent is Topgrading. For 40 years this method has helped countless firms like GE, Allied Signal, and thousands of growth firms avoid mis-hires who suck up time, effort, energy, AND MONEY! New 12 Step Process -- The Topgrading hiring process has been updated, resulting in 12 practical and easy to implement steps. And research confirms a greater than 90% success rate if you follow these steps. To provide an overview we invite you to a 35 minute no cost webcast Friday, June 22nd, 2pm ET. Jim Collins -- as he stressed at the recent Fortune Leadership Summit, "The single most important thing you need to do is pick the right people and keep them. There is NOTHING more important than this." And therefore the most important skill every manager and executive must master is hiring the right people. Take 35 minutes to see if Topgrading might be the right methodology for your firm. Post Salaries? -- Cameron Herold, former #2 at 1-800-GOT-JUNK, inquired a couple days ago what the Topgrading rules are for posting salaries. Notes Brad Smart, the creator of Topgrading "For executive jobs, no posting of comp. For most other jobs, yes. I'm running an ad for a part time job and put in $40 - $50 per hour, 30+ hours per week." Master the Most Important Executive Skill -- join us for the Friday, June 22, 2pm ET webcast.

Mr. Disruption; Huge Opportunity; Banking Relationship; Recruit at the Dock

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES: One-Page Tools Translated -- preparing for the second half of 2012 and need the Gazelles' Growth Tools in different languages (French, German, Spanish, Dutch)? See below...but first: Schedule Update -- I'm personally teaching a half-day Rockefeller Habits public workshop in Madison, WI, June 27 while I'm in the states for the summer. Plus the entire fall schedule is now published - 28 cities, 15th year (this stuff works!). See below...but second: Mr. Disruption Invests in Crowdfunding -- the movement Woodie Neiss and his team started is gaining momentum. Clayton Christensen, Harvard Biz Prof and author of bestseller The Innovators Dilemma, has invested in CircleUp, a crowdfunding platform. Fortune.com writer Dan Primack quizzed Christensen on just how disruptive crowdfunding might be to the traditional financing world. The last three sentences of his interview describe the classic approach to how all of us can disrupt the big guys!! Take one minute to read Clayton's thoughts. Huge Manufacturing Opportunity -- it's a small deal but it points to a huge opportunity for growth firms. Take four minutes to read why Starbucks is buying ceramic mugs from a small factory in Ohio. More importantly, it's led to the players involved buying a Japanese factory and bringing it to the US (page 2 of the article). This is the real opportunity!! And why does this make sense? To quote this NY Times story: "The effort is not all altruistic. Chinese labor has become more expensive, and Starbucks and other companies are looking at their supply chains more holistically. American Mug can deliver to Starbucks in four days, while Chinese suppliers may take three months. A Chinese supplier is also likely to require an order in the hundreds of thousands, increasing the risk that Starbucks will get stuck with inventory. And then there is the difference in shipping costs." Manufacturing is coming back - so how can you profit from this trend. Great Banking Relationship -- My comments about the power of having a single focus prompted Mushahid Khan, President & COO of O'Rourke Petroleum, to send this note "We have a great banking relationship with Chase. Each quarter we do a review of our business with them. During our review we presented our "one thing" which is to increase EBITDA per employee. It's interesting that explaining our business to outsiders forces me to be sharper and more thoughtful about our "one thing". I can't rely on inside, tribal knowledge and instead I need to be clear enough that outsiders understand what I'm saying." Never Surprise a Banker! -- Continues Khan, "Incidentally, Chase told us that almost none of their middle market clients present to them regularly like we do. We have a standing quarterly review with them and we tell them the good, the bad and the ugly. My philosophy is never to surprise a banker! Tell them big stuff as it happens instead of waiting until the end of the year and then reporting a big adjustment to previously reported financials." Great idea! Recruit at the Dock -- and my request for staff recruiting stories landed this whopper of an idea. Dietmar Petutschnig, Director of New Zealand-based ISD Limited shared "I recruit on or near the dock...no joke! After selling (my company) in 2006 I followed my lifelong dream of sailing around the world and once I got back to NZ I could not help myself and took over a 45 year old engineering company. And I discovered the best talent is fellow cruisers on the dock who arrive in New Zealand! It's a huge problem getting top talent as most people leave this place." Why Recruit Cruisers -- continues Dietmar, "So every November onward, when the cruising season starts and the cruisers arrive after crossing the Pacific, I meet as many of them as I can. I reason, after crossing the Pacific for several months or cruising for years, these people are: highly motivated, adaptive, responsible, goal oriented, inspired, immigrants -no family to fall back onto, had enough drive to sail on their own boats thousands of miles, and can weather storms and adversity." Love it! Translated One-Page Tools -- here's a link to the translated Growth Tools that bundles the various one-page worksheets, including the One-Page Strategic Plan, into one document. Special kudos to the following Gazelles coaches for their work on Version 2 of the Growth Tools™.   Spanish ES (Spain) - Lluis Gras French (Canada) - Cleo Maheux German - Dirk Kowalewski Dutch - Pieter Van Osch Spanish LA (Latin American) - Daniel Marcos & team

Power of One; Halftime; Do More Faster; Homeless to Harvard

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES:   Your present circumstances don't determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.   Nido Qubein Author and Speaker Brad Feld, TechStars Co-Founder -- Brad Feld, one of the most innovative VCs in the world, co-wrote one of my favorite "how to" books for growing a company entitled "Do More Faster." We just released a short online seminar featuring Brad and other key mentors sharing their best practices. As always, full money back guarantee if you don't find it insightful. Strategy: Stay Focused and Open -- my June "Growth Guy" syndicated column is published - and an appropriate mid-year review of how to maximize the next 6 months. The key, take a couple pages from Facebook - the power of focus and getting the MOST people on your bus! Take five minutes to scan the column. Halftime -- in a few weeks 2012 will be half over. No matter what has happened to date, good or bad, it's time to reassess and focus on the next 3 to 6 months. Two suggestions: Pick just one big priority (urgent tasks aren't the same as priorities - more on this below) Figure out how to get lots more people helping you for free The Power of One -- wow, at least from a personal and family perspective, having just one focus each for the year has been both liberating and effective. Everyone in the family has made significant progress on their one focus - Cameron with Chinese; Cole with building; Jade with equestrian lessons; etc. And I finished my latest book "The Greatest Decisions of All Time" (available October 2). Pick just ONE thing on which to focus and accomplish for the balance of the year and then give it several hours of focus each week. Urgent Tasks vs. Priorities -- I was in Prague last week leading a 2.5 Rockefeller Habits workshop for 20 YPO firms from around Europe. A key question came up, never really asked this way before - "what if a significant issue arises, like losing a key employee that needs replaced - doesn't that become the new priority?" Though it is a "priority" to get this person replaced, it doesn't replace the number one theme/focus/priority for the quarter or year. It's simply another urgent task for which you should have a process to complete. Most People on the Bus -- the second half of my Growth Guy column pushes firms to expand their crowdsourcing activities. Like Facebook, which has essentially 1 billion volunteers populating their site, how might you more fully tap into the wisdom of your marketplace, employees, and community to carry some of the burden of your business model? For instance, I'll be launching a weekly video where I highlight the greatest business decisions made that week. I'll be relying on you, my insight readers, to lend a hand - and more specifically, a large voluntary advisory board to aid in choosing the decisions. You've also been supplying me stories and ideas for my Fortune Venture columns - which both garners your firm publicity and helps me out. Need Recruiting Stories -- For my next column, I'm discussing talent recruiting. I'm looking for examples of how companies marketed positions to the right type of candidates. Did you place ads in unconventional places? Use guerrilla marketing techniques? Have you found that publishing a book or articles has attracted candidates? And have you found a way to bypass "middlemen" in recruiting, by for instance coming up with creative incentives for the A players on your team to refer talent they know to the company? Please let me know the type of company you run, how large it is, where it's based, exactly what you did to recruit and what positions you filled through your recruiting method. Email me at [email protected]. Strategy for Next Six Months -- ...so pick a single focus/priority and then figure out a way for lots more people to help you!! Simon Cowell Gets Vitamin IVs -- something I've been doing for over a decade is now going much more mainstream. Simon Cowell of American Idol fame (in the US), gets regular Vitamin C and B IVs (plus something for his liver - which I'm guessing is glutathione). Here's a link to more info. Keynote Your Trade Association Event -- Last week I beamed into John McGrath's Australian Real Estate conference (2500 in the audience) along with Donald Trump - it worked beautifully - this IS the future of keynoting, at least for me. If it's helpful to your mission, let me know if I might beam into your next trade association meeting - you get to introduce me and I'll work hard to make you look great! I have a beautiful facility in Barcelona I use and it's a whole lot less expensive than flying me in to keynote the event. From Homeless to Harvard -- ... and just when you think all is wrong with the world, this amazing story will lift you up and give you the courage to do something big! It will be the topic at our family dinner this evening.

Bubble or not; Essence of Strategy; Another Family Vacation Idea; June 5 Webinar

"...keeping you great" HEADLINES: June 5 Free Webinar -- "4 Things You Must Do to Lead a High Performance Team" - more details below, but first... Bubble or not? -- Mary Meeker, the well-known partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers, has released her latest report on trends formatted as a series of quick read slides. Here's the outline: Basic Stats - shows mobile adoption rates by country; internet usage; interesting trends in mobile vs. desktop ad rates, etc Re-imagination -- a bunch of slides comparing old vs. new ways we do everything Economy - mixed trends, negative bias 'USA Inc' - great news in tech; bad news everywhere else Bubble - or not? And the one internet IPO highlight/standout! This is worth five minutes of time scanning through the slides. Essence of Strategy -- If you're fascinated by the inner workings of Apple, you won't want to miss Greg McKeown's HBR blog entitled "The One Thing CEOs Need to Learn from Apple." My favorite line "Jobs said in an interview with Betsy Morris in 2008, 'People think focus means saying 'yes' to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying 'no' to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things we have done." And I love Greg's example of the CEO, unable to choose which of six product lines on which to focus, set a priority for each of the six and called that their strategy! This is worth another three minutes - lots of quotable lines and an excellent Steve Jobs video on having the guts to put the iPad on hold to do the iPhone. Another Family Trip Idea -- building on my suggested summer family trips, Bruce Crager, Director of Endeavor Management, shared the details of his annual Telluride, CO, outing with his children, their spouses, and his five grandchildren (7,6,5,4,and 2). Notes Crager, "On the first day I use large flip chart pages to list what they want to do during the week. And then each day we check off the ones we did (such as taking a hike). While they do not know it, they are learning goal setting and planning (figuring out how to do all the items on the list in one week) which I believe will be of real benefit to them as they grow up." Great idea!! Pacific to Atlantic Adventure -- to better frame the special opportunity to hike and kayak from the Pacific side of the continental divide across to the Atlantic coast in Panama, I mentioned Tuesday, this isn't a tourist offering. Only a few people have had the privilege to take the trip (Bruce Crager, mentioned above, is one of them). And it's only possible because of Earth Train's formal agreement with the Kuna tribe and their General Congress. As for the experience, notes Nathan Gray, founder of Earth Train and the well-known philanthropy pioneer who brought OxFam to the US, "you'll have moments of utter awe and reverence, as close as you may ever get to the experiences of Lewis and Clark." Go to www.earthtrain.org for more info. Webinar -- Sharpen your leadership skills -- Join Patrick Thean for his next webcast, "4 Things You Must Do to Lead a High Performance Team", and learn 4 practical ways to improve your team performance. Patrick is the expert at helping businesses execute for growth. His specialty is providing practical insights and one-page tools to help companies grow faster by getting their teams focused, aligned and accountable. Patrick will share 2 simple tools to help you lead your high performance teams on June 5 at 1 pm EST. Click here to register.