The Agile Scaleup

GoPro's Secret; Dumb Idea; Audi's Breakthrough; Feeling Held Hostage?; See you in Vegas next week!

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:  

Driverless Car Reaches 140mph -- in case you missed it this past weekend, watch this driverless Audi navigate a 14 turn race track in Germany at racing speed - the singularity point gets closer!! Scroll down the article to see the entire lap.

How GoPro Modelled Red Bull -- take 3 minutes to read Fortune's interview of Nick Woodman, founder-CEO of GoPro. I was particularly struck by Nick's response of which company he modelled GoPro after:

"I was inspired by how Red Bull isn't about the drink, it isn't about the product or the can. Red Bull is a platform to celebrate all that humans are capable of accomplishing. They built a lifestyle movement, a brand that sold this product. And they never really talk about the product. It's just all about the lifestyle."

This lifestyle brand idea is worth discussing at your next weekly marketing meeting.

Feeling Held Hostage? -- a veteran hostage negotiator for 40 years and author of two outstanding leadership books - Hostage at the Table and Care to Dare, George Kohlrieser shares his story about how he talks Sam out of killing Sheila and George in this short TedX talk. All of us, at times, feel like we're being held hostage - even by ourselves. The key is learning how to bond quickly with people, even with those who are despicable. Men have a particularly tough time doing this in general and George, IMD professor, hosts a highly touted one-week program called High Performance Leadership that helps top leaders at major firms learn how to do this with all the people they encounter. This TedX talk might save your life and your business - watch it with your people and family (and listen while doing email today).

Work-Life Balance Stupid Idea -- serial entrepreneur and IESE professor Conor Neill outlines 3 reasons work-life balance is a dumb idea - and then what to do about it. The 3 reasons:

1. It doesn't exist -- Humans have 2 legs, not 3. Triangles are naturally in balance, humans are not.
2. You wouldn't want it if you actually got it -- It is the journey that is meaningful, not the seat at the end. We are journey creatures, not "sitting-on-a-sofa-at-the-end" creatures.
3. It causes endless frustration. The search for balance is asking for frustration. It is strong foundations that allow for tall buildings to stay up, not balance.

Take 1 minute to read his short blog about what to do instead.

Drone Nation -- back to the world of technology, how might you use drones in your business? Here's an interesting Fortune article on how businesses are using drones and why Silicon Valley is going crazy over the technology. Scroll down (about 2/3rds) where they summarize the five main industries that are benefiting from drones. And all of you should want an AirDrone - we can all use one of these in our business!!

See you (record crowd) in Vegas next week for the Growth Summit!

COACHING:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?

Komisar's Nest deal; Mark Cuban's Advice; Devin Schain's Education Week

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:  

Kleiner Perkins' Randy Komisar -- the guy who invested $20 million in Nest and then helped sell the company to Google for $3.2 billion ($800 million of that back to Kleiner Perkins); author of the business philosophy book The Monk and the Riddle and co-author of Getting to Plan B; and someone who lectures widely on minimalistic management is coming to Vegas to keynote our Growth Summit presented by Fortune. Here's a link to a recent BBW article detailing the Nest transaction and how it puts Google at the forefront of the "internet of things." We're super excited to have Randy join us. He's substituting for Ben Horowitz, who is trying to reschedule. Keep reading.

Andriy Kobolyev -- he's the 36 year old CEO of 176,000 employee Naftogaz, a company that represents one-eighth of Ukraine's total GDP and is #4 on Fortune's Top 40 Under 40 list. Fortune notes "He doesn't have a mentor, and instead learned his leadership style from books." As Scott Nash, CEO of MOM's Organic Market noted in highlighting this fun fact about Andriy, "One book can change everything. And it happens all the time." I couldn't agree more. Keep reading.

Mark Cuban -- I shouldn't have been surprised to read that billionaire serial entrepreneur and colorful owner of the Dallas Mavericks reads three hours per day - per day -- something he says he had to negotiate with his wife Tiffany. No less than a dozen times in his book How to Win at the Sport of Business (great book - I have my teenage sons reading it now) he emphasizes how he has always been a big reader and how just one idea from a book was enough to make it worthwhile - and that one idea was enough to put him ahead of the pack. Keep reading.

Dr Peter Katzmarzyk -- however, sitting for too long reading or doing emails is not healthy. In a study of 17,000 Canadians, Dr. Katzmarzyk found "Individuals who sat the most were roughly 50% more likely to die during the follow-up period than individuals who sat the least, even after controlling for age, smoking, and physical activity levels." So what is the one simple thing you can do to counter all this sitting? Take 1 minute to scan through this short article. Thanks to Carl Fowler with Life Code for sharing this article with me. Then sit down and keep reading.

Science Behind Reading -- did you know research has found:

"Just six minutes of reading is enough to reduce stress by 68%, and numerous studies have shown that reading keeps your brain functioning effectively as you age. One study even found that elderly individuals who read regularly are 2.5 times less likely to develop Alzheimer's than their peers."

But not all forms of reading are created equal. This article details why reading paper books is better than reading on e-readers - FYI, more important if reading novels than biz books, so keep reading!

YPOer Devin Schain -- At $1.3 trillion in revenue, education in the US is big business. So, what happens when you mix educators, entrepreneurs, investors, established businesses, and policymakers? Serial entrepreneur Devin Schain is hosting National Education Week, beginning Nov. 10 in Washington, DC. The highlight is the Thought Leader Summit on Nov. 12 & 13 which is limited to 600 participants -- at last year's summit 47% were CEOs. The speakers are top notch (with luminaries such as U.S. Senator Cory Booker and Joel Klein), but the real bonus is access to the other participants in a decidedly unstuffy atmosphere--no VIP-only receptions or closed-door sessions. Insight readers can register here -- to receive 20% off, use the code ASSOCIATION.

Keep Reading and Learning!

COACHING:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?

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:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?

3 Important Books; Perfect Persuasion Manual; 9 Email Rules; Amsterdam, Athens, and Cyprus

"...out-learning the competition"

HEADLINES:  

How Google Works -- you've likely seen plenty of press for Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt's new book How Google Works (interestingly, no subtitle). Co-authored with former SVP of Products Jonathan Rosenberg, I strongly suggest you take 2 minutes to download and read Google co-founder Larry Page's short but very insightful Foreword - worth the price of the book. How to create an organization that maintains the autonomy "smart creatives" need, while scaling up, is one key to Google's success. The other is setting big goals. Page has found, surprisingly, that it's tremendously hard to get teams to be super ambitious (he explains why).

9 Rules for Emailing -- Fortune magazine published a specific excerpt from the Google book detailing 9 specific rules for emailing (or gmailing) - worth a couple minutes to scan down the list.

Persuasion Manual -- however, you may have missed this new book. If you want 52 small and legal "how to" ideas which have a big influence, read The small BIG: small changes that spark big influence just published Sept. 9. Dr. Robert Cialdini has done it again. Author (and father) of Influence, he's teamed up with Steve Martin and Noah Goldstein, two other heavyweights in persuasion science, to write a book that gets right to the point (very short chapters) in sharing simple and no cost ideas to persuade people. A hint on how to read the book is in the next paragraph.

Change One Sentence -- They open by showing how small changes in the wording of a letter helped the UK collect hundreds of millions of pounds in additional revenue -- and how you can apply the same idea in your business. Then they share 51 more killer techniques (idea: figure out how to apply one per week in your marketing meeting). Lead author Steve Martin is keynoting the Growth Summit Oct 28 - 29 in Vegas and GazellesPro and book club members will receive a copy of the book. One hint - go immediately to the bonus chapter in the back and then read the chapters in reverse order - the authors saved some of the best ideas for last.

10X Your Company -- why are many of the new companies growing ten times faster than others? A soon to be released (Oct 14) book by Singularity University director Salim Ismail explains how. Titled Exponential Organizations: Why new organizations are ten times better, faster, and cheaper than yours (and what to do about it), Salim shares 10 characteristics of exponential companies. Salim is also keynoting the Growth Summit.

Exemplary Leadership -- In the midst of running our companies, sometimes we forget to challenge ourselves as leaders. 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:

Amsterdam, Cyprus, and Athens -- I'll be leading a one-day workshop in Amsterdam Oct 7; in Cyprus with YPO Oct 8 - 10; then with the family in Athens Oct 11 - 13. Let me know if you want to connect.

COACHING:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?