The Agile Scaleup

Powerful Question (Parents and Leaders); Holiday gift enclosed; Sample One-Page Strategic Plan

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.
	Corrie ten Boom

Holiday Present -- a bonus chapter titled "Strategic Planning: Preparing and Leading the Planning Process" is now available to download for free at www.scalingup.com. Hope it helps you prepare for a successful 2015 and beyond. Notes the Executive Summary for the chapter:

The key to success in most endeavors requires the right preparation, execution, and follow-through. In this bonus chapter accompanying Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0), we share a dozen key steps to prepare the team for a quarterly or annual planning session; suggested agendas; and recommended follow-through after the offsite meetings. And at the back of this chapter is a sample completed One-Page Strategic Plan.

Powerful Question (Parent or Leader) -- the bonus chapter includes one of the most powerful questions a parent can ask their child or a leader can their team. Let's say your son or daughter brings home a great set of grades or wins the science fair. Right after you exclaim "congratulations" the most powerful question you can ask is "how did you do it?" Let them relive and share how they were able to accomplish their feat. The same with your team. We explain how to do this as part of a quarterly all-employee meeting in the bonus chapter.

Sample One-Page Strategic Plan (OPSP) -- we're often asked to show a completed OPSP. The bonus chapter includes an example on the last two pages. We'll be creating completed samples for all the tools, and for various business types, in 2015.

Happy Holidays! I'm taking next week off; but back with a weekly insight Dec 30 to help prepare you for 2015, including five key (but tough) questions to ask.

COACHING:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?

Bill Gates Top 5 Books; Magic Johnson's Advice; Addicting Products; Dec 17 Webinar

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

Member of AIGA? -- please let me know if you're a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts - thanks.

Magic Johnson's Business Advice (1 minute video) -- this short Fortune interview of sport legend Magic Johnson is worth listening to while reading the rest of this insight - three strong pieces of advice for any business leader from a guy who has amassed a half billion net worth from making some smart business moves. In the end it's about hard work and discipline and finding the right "who's"; the same any biz leader or athlete needs to be #1 in their chosen sport (worth sharing this minute with your children).

Bill Gates' Top 5 Books -- a voracious reader, Bill Gates shares his Top 5 books for 2014, including what he calls "the best business book I've ever read." Titled Business Adventures by John Brooks, it's a 1969 classic recently reprinted given Gates' enthusiasm for the book. Notes Gates, in this Fortune article highlighting his five choices:

Shortly after we met, Warren Buffett loaned me this collection of New Yorker business articles from the 1950s and 1960s. I loved them as much as he did. Brooks's insights about business have aged beautifully, and they are as true today as ever.

One of the other five is a fiction book to be released Dec 31 titled The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion. Gates loved the insights it gave him about relationships (Peter Drucker read fiction books to give him similar insights into human behavior). Take 1 minute to read up on the other three books - then grab a couple to read over the holidays!

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (Read Chapter 6) -- "How to create products people LOVE and can't put down" would be another fitting subtitle for this new book by Nir Eyal. A teacher of applied consumer psychology at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, he has spent years in the video gaming and advertising worlds from which he's distilled keys to making all products and services more addictive. Go immediately to chapter 6 and read the five fundamental questions you must answer to create addictive products/services (I read this book to see if applied to 90% of us and it does) - then come hear Nir keynote Fortune's Leadership Summit May 12 - 13, Orlando. GazellesPro and book club members will receive a copy next week.

No Time to Read (2 minute article) -- emails and meetings, they are eating us alive - leaving us no time to read and think and work on the important stuff - and it's normally a few people (or outsiders) that create most of the problems. This Wall Street Journal article titled "Stop Wasting Everyone's Time" discusses how some companies are using various software programs to analyze the problem and ferret out the time wasters. For instance, in studying more than 25 companies, VoloMetrix (one software solution) has found executives who consume more than 400 hours a week of colleagues' time, "the equivalent of 10 people working full-time every week just to read one manager's email and attend his or her meetings." The confidential feedback helps managers stop their time-wasting behavior.

Are You the Problem? (7 Questions) -- The WSJ article includes seven questions you can quickly answer to see if you're the one wasting everyone's time. Review at your next weekly meeting (OK, the irony is not lost on me) - but if you run your weekly and daily meetings correctly, they should only consume 4 to 5 hours per week and result in dramatically fewer emails - vs. the 20 hours/week of meetings some find themselves in. Thanks to Jimmy Calano for pointing me to this article.

Raise Your Status -- Write a Book (Dec 17, 1pm ET Webinar) -- better than reading a book is writing a book. My friend Adam Witty helped Jack Daly write his book Hyper Sales Growth in 24 hours - really! Adam is founder and CEO of Advantage Media Group and is hosting a webinar, December 17th at 1pm ET, titled: "How to use a book to raise your status, attract your ideal client, and market your business." A book demonstrates your expertise and forces you to be clear on the value you offer. It's a powerful tool for differentiating yourself and your company from the competition. Tune in to learn how to get your own book written in less than 24 hours and save 90% of the painstaking time it takes most leaders. Reserve your seat today.

COACHING:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?

2% Mistake; End of Human Race; Bias for Action; Jan 26-27 Abundance Invite

"...keeping you great"

HEADLINES:  (Audio version of Scaling Up now available on Amazon, iTunes, etc.)

Need Ideas for Video -- what recent well-known events come to mind that represent a "bias for action" - someone or team/organization that faced adversity, took action, and triumphed. Sports, adventure, political, social, business - like Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist for female education and the youngest-ever Nobel Prize recipient. Please email me at [email protected] - thanks.

Hawking: AI could end human race -- Prof Stephen Hawking, one of the world's leading scientists, is in the news this week. He warns that artificial intelligence "could spell the end of the human race." He goes on to explain, "Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded." This BBC article also notes that Elon Musk fears artificial intelligence as well. Why am I bringing this up...

...New Technologies are Disrupting ALL our Industries -- the #1 job of a leader is prediction, working to keep your company just ahead of customers and competitors (and the kid working in his garage). In 2015 Gazelles is partnering with Peter Diamandis, founder of the X-Prize and Singularity University, to keep you up-to-date monthly on the latest advances in infinite computing, synthetic biology, robotics, 3-D printing, artificial intelligence, etc. and their practical applications to your industries. The initiative is called Abundance360 (A360). Here's a short video describing the program, which Peter has committed to supporting for the next 25 years.

A360 Sign Up -- the yearlong initiative kicks off with a Summit (250 CEOs and leaders) Jan 25 (3pm) - 27 (5pm) in Beverly Hills, CA. Gazelles will host a "meeting within a meeting" using the new Strengths, Weaknesses, Trends strategy tool and for you to discuss implications with your peers -- limited to 20, so let us know if you sign up for A360. At the Summit itself you'll receive practical tools from Peter and his team that you can immediately apply to your business to help you use these exponential technologies. You'll also become part of a tight-knit, extraordinary group of individuals who collaborate and take "moonshots" at creating a world of abundance. Then you'll be updated monthly on new companies and technologies continuing to disrupt industries. The service fee for the year which includes the Summit, webinars, and ongoing updates is $10k. You can sign up at http://www.abundance360summit.com/ -- again let us know and we'll invite you to our Gazelles event as well.

What Consumes Most of our Time? -- "At most companies, people spend 2 percent of their time recruiting and 75 percent managing their recruiting mistakes," notes Richard Fairbanks, CEO of Capital One, in this Harvard Business School article yesterday. How true, which is why one of the three most important skills all leaders need to master is how to recruit, interview, and hire.

Even if Only One Applicant -- what if you only get one applicant for a position and you're desperate? Using Topgrading, the only method we trust in interviewing and hiring, at least lets you know who you're getting so you don't go into the relationship blindly. You'll know their strengths and weaknesses so you can adjust accordingly. Most people think Topgrading is only useful if you have lots of applicants. To get someone in your firm certified in the Topgrading methodology email Juan Gonzalez at [email protected] or call him at +(512) 773 5465.

Cost of mis-hires -- according to extensive research by Dr. Brad Smart, the creator of Topgrading, the average cost of a mis-hire is:

• Sales Rep = 6 TIMES Annual Salary
• Manager = 15 TIMES Annual Salary
• Executive = 27 TIMES Annual Salary

Classes to become certified in the Topgrading methodology online (video and interactive webinars) are launching all the time. If you have any questions or would like a copy of the Class' Syllabus please email Juan Gonzalez at [email protected] or call him at +(512) 773 5465.

Bias for Action -- don't let new technologies, bad hires, etc. co-opt your dreams. The best way to control the future is to create it - make it happen!!

COACHING:

Need help implementing the Rockefeller Habits?