Congrats #2, 3, 6, 7, 13; Microsoft in 2 sentences; Uber's clever deal; 2pm ET today

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:  

2pm ET Today -- On Friday Oct 10th at 2:00PM EST, the Gazelles Growth Institute is hosting a 1-Hour panel discussion on Exemplary Leadership, based on Jim Kouzes and Barry Posner's book The Leadership Challenge. This event will include a panel of qualified business leaders eager to share their personal experience implementing Jim and Barry's methodology and how this has helped them grow! You can register here:

Innovative Financing for Uber Drivers -- the car-hire company Uber's "growth strategy involves financing drivers with someone else's money" notes this latest Fortune article. Uber has structured a deal with GM, Toyota, and a few financial institutions to help Uber drivers get favorable financing for new cars that fit their quality standards - a great way to "finance the instrument of revenue generation" for Uber, notes Brent Callinicos, a former finance director at Microsoft and Google and now Uber CFO. How might you get others to finance the instruments of your revenue generation? (just love that nerdy phrase!). Take 3 minutes to read the details.

Microsoft's Future in 2 Sentences -- with a new CEO in place, it's time for a new BHAG to focus everyone's efforts at Microsoft. Summarized in roughly two sentences, Satya Nadella is quoted in a recent Vanity Fair interview as reported by Business Insider - it's worth the 30 seconds to read. And from this new focus, quoting the article:

Nadella and Gates imagine a piece of software for having meetings. Walk into the room, and the devices use their cameras to recognize you and log you in. Whether people in the meeting use smartphones, PCs, tablets, or videoconferencing units, everything that needs to be done, from sharing notes to scheduling followup meetings, can be done by a single app, shared across all devices, all operating systems.

Clif Bar's Employee Practices -- Every seven years workers become eligible for a six-week paid sabbatical. This is one of many innovative employee practices that put 384-employee Clif Bar on the list of "Best Companies to Work For." And it's paid off. Clif Bar has just 3% employee turnover and received over 7,700 applicants for 114 positions the past twelve months - and they are not a sexy tech firm. It's also helped them average 20% annual growth the past 10 years - a real "gazelle" in the economy. Take 2 minutes to scan this article for additional employee best practices.

#2 and #3 -- congrats to Professional Placement Resources (PPR -- GazellesPro) and Ruby Receptionist (answer Gazelles' phones) for placing second and third on Fortune's "Best 25 Small Companies to Work For" list (25 to 249 employees).

#6, #7, and #13 -- and congrats to Hagerty (GazellesPro), Atlassian, and Infusionsoft for making Fortune's "Best 25 Medium Companies to Work For" list (250 to 999 employees) - Rockefeller Habits-disciplined firms.

Top 40 Under 40 -- Fortune just released online their top list of young business leaders - with Zuckerberg coming in 2nd - see who beat him out for the #1 spot. Here's a link to the list - good to know who is under 40 and rocking the biz world.

COACHING:

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