The Agile Scaleup

Think Like Steve Jobs; How Microsoft Did It; 3 MSP Mistakes; Oct 4 Kaihan Krippendorff Webinar

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

I need to change the mindset of this company...from a 'know it all' culture to a 'learn it all' culture.'
	Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft

Outlearn the Competition -- a dozen top biz thought leaders in addition to eight ScaleUpX speakers (successful leaders of mid-market firms) will keynote our upcoming ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17, Denver. Learning is not a "nice to have" it's a "must have" in today's information-driven economy as the top market cap companies in the world have learned (below). See you in Denver.

Learn It All Culture -- at almost $900 billion in market cap, Microsoft is the third largest market cap firm in the world behind Apple and Amazon and just ahead of Alphabet (hint, pick a name that starts with the letter "A"). This 4+ minute Fortune interview of Microsoft's EVP of Biz Dev Peggy Johnson gives insights into the unbelievable turnaround of this tech giant and how it has become nimble again. One key was CEO Nadella's focus on creating a "learn it all" culture. The second is highlighted at the 3:52 mark where Peggy describes how every Microsoft employee knows and is focused on Microsoft's mission, which she shares. The key is that CEO Nadella repeats this statement and a handful of ambitions at EVERY weekly executive all-hands meeting It's worth a few seconds to hear her talk about this - then watch the entire 4 minutes.

What is Your Weekly Mantra? -- what are the messages you're going to share meeting after meeting after meeting - from the quarterly theme to the company's purpose/BHAG. As Peggy Johnson mentions in the interview, you can't just check off a box that you have these strategy decisions. You need to stay on message by repeating them a lot - this is what leaders of major companies like Microsoft do - simple and effective. So just do it!!

Learn to Think Like Steve Jobs -- so what was Steve Jobs' final "project." It wasn't a product, it was Apple University - his succession plan. One of the best kept secrets still today, my partner Daniel Marcos found this Deloitte posted blog. Notes the blog:

According to Apple, the company founded Apple University in 2008 "to teach Apple employees how to think like Steve Jobs and make decisions he would make." In many ways it was built to solve the problem of "running Apple after Steve Jobs" - and setting in place the tools and information which helps Apple learn from his collective 30 years of wisdom.

It goes on to note:

...the University is designed around capturing Job's collective learning and translating this into content, programs, and materials which Apple employees and leaders can use long into the future.

Please take 2 minutes to read the entire piece. Hopefully the tools within Scaling Up serve as a foundation for best practices in scaling your firm - and our educational and coaching services help you keep everyone educated.

MSP's Growing 5x GDP -- I keynoted IT Glue's customer conference last week. Chris Day, founder and CEO, is riding a fast growth firm in a fast growth industry - the Managed Service Provider (MSP) space. It's fun to see mid-market firms growing so fast given the kind of "wind at their back" market forces swirling around them. Yet, they also face some challenges. In this interview for Channel Partners Online I share 3 things MSPs (and most mid-market firms) do poorly - Pricing, Targeting, and Marketing. Please take 2 minutes to skim through the three ideas.

Strategy Webinar 12pm ET Oct. 4 -- Dr. Kaihan Krippendorff, author of OUTThink the Competition, has captured the essence of strategy and given us a truly fresh language to guide and enhance the process. He will be sharing that on October 4th. Register here:

Kaihan is a dear friend of mine and a great business strategist who has consulted an impressive list of outstanding companies, including Sotheby's, TedX, Kraft, NASA, and Google. I'm so excited to announce that Kaihan has agreed to share his insights on the secrets to outthinking the competition and creating disruptive innovation. You don't want to miss this free webinar on October 4th. Click here to register:

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Billionaire’s Advice; Raising Resilient Children; Open Office Results; Amsterdam Events Nov 6-7

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES: (Adam Grant fest!)

Nov 6 - 7 Amsterdam -- Join us in The Netherlands for two full days of executive education. More info below, but first...

Sept 21 Hotel Room Cutoff -- our discounted hotel rate for the ScaleUp Summit Oct 16 - 17 and Scaling Up User Conference Oct 18 ends tomorrow, Friday Sept 21. Please click here to reserve your hotel room.

Open Offices Decrease Face Time; Increase Email -- this reputable Harvard study published in The British Psychological Society Research Digest showed that moving from cubicles to a fully open office setting reduced face-to-face time by 73% while email and instant messaging increased 67% and 75% respectively. Working in an open office plan, people find ways to close-down (headphones, for instance) and rely more on electronic communication. On the surface this sounds negative, but it could be a good thing in that people interrupt each other less and can focus more. For me, the key to making open offices work is the daily huddle which gives teams structured time to get face-to-face while eliminating the need for a lot of these emails/texts. Please take 1 minute to read - and thanks to Adam Grant for sharing.

Key to Complex Problem Solving -- Intermittent Collaboration - another Adam Grant recommended piece of research - this time around effective complex problem solving. This Harvard Gazette article summarizes that the individuals on teams need both alone time and group time to work on complex problems. This seems obvious, yet all the new technologies seem to keep everyone "on" and connected all the time. Notes the article:

Groups whose members interacted only intermittently preserved the best of both worlds, rather than succumbing to the worst. These groups had an average quality of solution that was nearly identical to those groups that interacted constantly, yet they preserved enough variation to find some of the best solutions, too.

There are similar implications for the open office setting where both "agile" daily huddles balanced with quiet phone booth like spaces are important in team work. This article is worth another minute.

Key Question to Raise Resilient Children (or Associates)? -- Adam Grant, in this 3-minute interview on the Today Show, shares quick hints on raising happy and resilient children. Besides having the guts to say "no" more often, try asking your children for their advice when you're facing a tough situation/decision. Adam did this with his daughter as he prepared for his TED talk. Her advice later helped her perform on stage. Adam is always worth the time to read/listen to.

Questions to Ask after School -- do you struggle as a parent wondering what to ask your children (young and old) when they come home from school? I had lunch Sunday with the famous Kathy Kolbe, the 74-year-young creator of the Kolbe Index. It assesses the natural way each person takes action (I'm a 5-3-8-4). Anyway, we were talking about our children (her son is CEO of Kolbe) and it drifted to great questions. Here are the two questions she suggested work (have fun with variations) - and she's right. I tried it with my 11-year-old son Quinn and it was a fun conversation:

1) If you could do something over today, what would it be? 2) What was the dumbest thing you saw?

Billionaire Sara Blakely's Fatherly Advice -- Kolbe's questions reminded me of the CNN 4-minute interview with billionaire Sara Blakely of Spanx fame who shared how her dad encouraged her and her brother to fail i.e. he would ask them at the dinner table how they failed that week - and if they didn't have anything he was disappointed. Sara describes this in the first 15 seconds of the interview - and the entire 4 minutes is worth watching.

Nov 6 - 7 Amsterdam -- on Nov 6 our Dutch partners are hosting a one-day "Master Coach" class led by Gregg Thompson, author of Master Coach. This course gives leaders the coaching skills they need, now that managing has pivoted to coaching. The course includes an excellent segmented list of questions you can use in any coaching situation. On Nov 7, I'll be leading a master class on Scaling Up along with special guest Joss Milner who will go deep in the cash flow aspects of business and our new cash tool called The Power of One. Both courses are in English.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]  

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Friendship Advantage; Big Decision; Pricing Strategy; Sept 26 Webinar

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Webinar Sept 26 with Verne -- I'll be joining Daniel Marcos for a Sept 26 webinar to discuss the most important "big decision" Steve Jobs made to guarantee his baby would survive and thrive long after his passing - the true measure of a leader. More below, but first...

How to Make a Big Decision -- this is your more extensive reading assignment for the weekend. This NY Times article by best-selling author Steven Johnson (we hosted him at an earlier Summit) details the research behind making better BIG decisions. Quotes Johnson:

The ultimate limitation of the pros and cons list is that we are merely transcribing our existing understanding of the decision at hand and not seeing it with fresh eyes. "One thing a person cannot do, no matter how rigorous his analysis or heroic his imagination," the economist and Nobel laureate Thomas Schelling once observed, "is to draw up a list of things that would never occur to him."

So what do you do instead? This article details the approach and is worth the 5 minutes to read (and another 15 to study!). I like his opening story about Charles Darwin's big decision! Thank you, equally brilliant Adam Grant, for recommending this insightful article. It's a few big decisions that you have to get right, setting the course of your company and your life - make them wisely.

The Friendship Advantage -- Forum guru, trainer of over 20,00 leaders, and dear friend Mo Fathelbab just published a book titled The Friendship Advantage: 7 Keys to Building Relationships That Transform Corporate Culture and Drive Productivity. Notes Mo in the opening of Chapter 1:

...Just 30 percent of employees have a best friend at work. Those who do are seven times as likely to be engaged in their jobs, are better at engaging customers, produce higher quality work, have higher well-being, and are less likely to get injured on the job. In sharp contrast, those without a best friend in the workplace have just a 1 in 12 chance of being engaged.

SPro and book club members will receive a copy next week. Then come be inspired by Mo as he beautifully shares his ideas on our ScaleUp Summit stage in Denver Oct 16 - 17 along with eleven other top biz thought leaders - the equivalent of "reading" a dozen books, the fun way!

7 Keys to Friendship -- here are Mo's 7 Keys:

Judgement Free Mischievous Fun Vulnerability Kind Truth Reliability Generosity Shared Purpose

It's the perfect checklist for testing if you can be a true friend. I'm going through the list right now - seeing where I'm falling short in my friendships and having some insightful dialogues along the way And as he shares, "...at least one of these keys will prove to be very difficult for you or those with whom you want to develop real relationships." I recommend you choose which one it is for you and go right to that chapter of the book first, after reading Chapter 1. Mo has written a very heartful, insightful, and practical book everyone should absorb. Congratulations Mo!!!

Good, Better, Best Pricing -- are you giving your customers pricing options? Just like 3 brand promises (3 reasons to buy your product/service) are much better than 2 or 4 or 10; it's the same for pricing. This HBR article details several excellent examples. And remember, pricing is tricky because we're selling to people, not companies - and people are NOT rational, so you can't use logic to set price (re-read this last sentence again). It's also why we muck up our compensation plans. More thought and human understanding needs to go into pricing. Please take 2 minutes to read this article. Thank you, Sebastian Ross, for sharing.

ScaleUp Summit in Denver -- Limited seats are still available for the Fall ScaleUp Summit (October 16-17, 2018). Includes 12 best-selling authors and business thought leaders (see full list). This year is slated to be the largest Summit yet, with more than 800+ CEO and business leaders attending! Bring three or more of your leadership team and save $300 per person. Don't miss out. Register today

Sept 26 Webinar with Verne and Daniel -- Are you interested in scaling your company with the help of Salim Ismail, Jack Daly, David Meerman Scott, Dr. Brad Smart, Kaihan Krippendorff, and other great thought leaders? I'm joining Growth Institute's CEO, Daniel Marcos, on September 26th for a live information session about how - based on a key decision Steve Jobs made. We're going to be talking about why it's more important than ever to find your village of gurus and invest in a high caliber implementation environment to complement your Scaling Up strategy. Click here to register.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.

Asleep in 2 Minutes; Ken Sim Mayor; Shark Tank Judge Australia; Top 5 Biz Book

"...insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future!
	Yogi Berra

Scaling Up Fan Running for Mayor -- Ken Sim, co-founder of two highly successful businesses, is running for the Mayor of Vancouver. More below, but first...

Shark Tank Judge Dr. Glen Richards Sept 18 Sydney -- Dr. Richards scaled his first biz to over $800 million using the Scaling Up tools; and is doing it again with a new firm. Well known throughout Australia as one of the judges on their popular Shark Tank show, Dr. Richards is our partner in launching the ScalingUp Master's Program (SMP). He's hosting an introductory event Sept 18, 5pm - 7pm in Sydney. More below, but second...

Prediction from 2007 -- Alex Rusch, a dear Swiss friend in the publishing biz, came across a prediction I shared in my insights over a decade ago. Quote:

Conclusion: iPhone is poorly named, it will do well initially and morph quickly into a handheld Mac, and the Headsets.com and Plantronics of the world will be the "phone" distributor and manufacturers of choice. And like high end stereo equipment, we'll own and use a separate camera, PDA, and phone -- three devices from three separate companies to do three distinct jobs.

It's making crazy dumb predictions like this that had me conclude that only the market can be the final judge. Over the years I've seen what I thought were home runs fail miserably; and ideas I thought were duds, like the iPhone, take companies to billions (or trillions).

Shoot Bullets, Not Cannonballs -- The market makes you look smart or dumb, so as Jim Collins suggests in Great by Choice (by far Jim's greatest book for scalesups - and one of the top 5 of all time) - shoot bullets, not cannonballs. Test your ideas, first, in a real marketplace and then invest crazily in the few things that work.

Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes -- this Bustle article highlights a military technique for falling asleep quickly. Sleep is so critical to everything we do as biz leaders - improving decision making and giving us stamina. Please take 1 minute to read then practice for six weeks as suggested (yep, takes practice!). Thank you to Scaling Up Certified Coach John Anderson for sharing.

Gazelles Member Ken Sim running for Mayor of Vancouver in Upcoming Election

On October 20, the citizens of Vancouver head to the polls to elect a new Mayor and a long-time GazellesPro Member is beginning to muster quite the notoriety as he throws his hat in the ring. Ken Sim, co-founder of two highly successful companies - Nurse Next Door (5000+ employees and over 180 franchise locations across North America) and Rosemary Rocksalt (six restaurants and growing) - is running for Mayor of Vancouver. Soon after Sim was elected with a clear majority by his NPA party to run for mayor, the Globe and Mail reported "Ken Sim is a catch for the Non-Partisan Association." If you live in Vancouver or have ties to the Pacific Northwest city, be sure to check out Sim's web site to learn more www.buildabettervancouver.ca and reach out if you can. Ken needs your support to win the race. Good luck on your campaign, Ken!

Mini-Milestone -- thank you to all who have posted positive reviews of my book. This week Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0) passed a mini-milestone - 500 reviews (thank you Chip - please let me know who you are if you read these insights)!

Scaling Up Master's Program | Sydney, Australia | October 24th, 2018

Where the rubber hits the road...The Scaling Up Master's Program (SMP) is being launched by Shark Tank's Dr. Glen Richards in Sydney on October 24th, 2018.

This 12-month fast-track leadership team program equips you and your team with the skills, discipline and focus to optimize, calibrate and grow as fast as possible. This program is designed for companies with an unquenchable bias for action and is being facilitated by successful Scaling Up entrepreneurs.

Glen is hosting a free information evening on Sept 18th, 2018, 5-7 pm in Sydney's CBD. For more information, please contact Anna Samios (+61) 0408 660 855 or email at [email protected]

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 6 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding back you, your business, and your industry. October 2 - 5; January 15 - 18, 2019.

EXITING: Thinking about selling the business for $40 million or more? Want to get 25% to 200% more than you thought? Request the whitepaper from the Exit Strategies Summit at Harvard from Denise Richmond at (610) 299-6466 or email at [email protected]

COACHING:

Have you ever wondered if working with a coach might accelerate your company's growth, exponentially? Do you have what it takes to move the dial from good to great? Contact us at [email protected] for more information or visit https://coaches.scalingup.com/.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability - Drive Execution with Align, cloud-based software designed to scale up your Rockefeller Habits implementation. www.alignwithgazelles.com - on your computer, tablet or phone. Click here to watch an introductory video.

Better Book Club -- What's your team reading? Increase your books read per team member. Easy, Proven, and in the Cloud at http://www.BetterBookClub.com.