Blog

Gio Livera is a motivational speaker, magician, and author.  I really enjoy magicians.  He was quite entertaining and motivating.  He encouraged us to find “It”    “It” is where talent and passion collide.   Some other catchy quotes

• Make your ceiling your floor.
• Compound the interest on your happiness
• What would you do if you were braver today?

And he taught us all a magic trick.  Love it.

Verne wrapped up with the summit audience, pretty much what he said in the Coaches Session. Best leadership quote he gave:  “Remember, the bottleneck is at the top of the bottle.”

The summit was thematically the best I’ve been at ever.

To lead you have to be good for goodness sakes.  Not to gain. But to make others better.

Verne also posted a drawing he made that afternoon.  “The ‘I’ in ‘TEAM” goes in the A Hole.”  I’ll try to duplicate it and post it on FB.

PRetty much wraps up all my learning this week.  Heading home in the morning.

This session at the Gazelles Summit was particularly helpful to me.  I find Social Media to be challenging.  I embrace it, but being 55 it doesn’t come naturally to me.

Dave Kerpen, author of Likeable Business shared with us 7 of the 13 principles laid out in his book about how to deliver a more likeable company.  All in the Social Media context

1. Listen First and Never Stop Listening (more listening then talking)
2. Respond to Everyone, to the good and bad (this one I find most difficult but I’m starting to get it)
3. Tell, don’t Sell  (tell your story
4. Be Transparent–Be open by being vulnerable, admit when you mess up and fix it publically
5. Be Authentic–Have to be yourself.  Consistent both on and off the airways.  Use vulnerability to build trust.  Respond as a human not an institution.
6. Create teams that work hard and play hard together
7. Be Grateful  –The ROI of gratitude is very high.  Most important words in Social Media are “Thank You” and “I’m sorry.”

I’m getting the book.  Put some of this to work this very afternoon.

Still, I have to say that I’m concerned that social media could make us all a bunch of whiners if we aren’t careful about it.  MAybe the gratitude principle is what will keep this in check.

Definitely a theme:

“Leadership is always about doing good and your primary intent.  And if you do you will reap rewards”

This is different from that trite cliche of “givers gain” that in my mind has been twisted around to mean that if I give I’ll gain so the motive for giving is the gain, not the good.

The data from the first three speakers confirms this.  Hard data confirms that doing good as primary motive delivers superior results.

• Good Selling  (the presenter was Daniel Pink, who I have blogged extensively about before, so not today)
• Being a Good Employer  (Laurie Blassi)
• Doing good as your motive to drive personal performance.  (Jim Loehr)

SRC, GGOB and Jack Stack provided the best real world case study of it, confirming the experts who presented.

See you tomorrow.  Hope it will be more of the same. Today was restorative.

Jack Stack, Chairman and CEO of Springfield Re-manufacturing Company, and author and founder of The Great Game of Business(GGOB), closed out our day here in Orlando.

In my mind, he should the Capitalist’s Capitalist.  The Best One.

He has walked his talk for 31 years, delivering at least 15 % growth no matter what, year after year.

To first save and then to grow his company he taught Financial Literacy (capitalism) to the entire company.  Opened the books to the entire company.  Involved the entire company in the decision making process of the company.  And promised to  share the created wealth with the entire company.

He taught the team capitalism and got out of their way.  Gave them the tools and let them do it.  And held them to it.

Wasn’t easy.  He hasn’t stopped teaching it.  It’s hard work.  And because his team understands it, he is held accountable by them, even by the janitor.  (pick up his book and read the story of the janitor holding him accountable).

Don’t know how to do it? Go to Springfield to attend his GGOB School and let Jack’s people teach you how to do it.

All of you should do the same.  Teach your team the “game” of your business and the rules for winning,  follow the action and keep score, and share in the outcome.

Forget Jack Welch as being the best “Jack” in business.  He’s accomplished “jack” compared to Jack Stack.

His final words of the conference:  “Once you get someone to understand capitalism, it will change their life.”

One of the reasons I love the Gazelles Fortune Summits is that Verne brings in people who can back up their speeches with either the data or significant experience.  No fads of the month.

Laurie Bassi fits this description.  Not the flashiest speaker, you could even tell she was a bit uncomfortable with the size of the audience.  But she has the data.  She’s done the research and you can scoff at her insights but you can’t argue the data.

The data says that among public companies, the ones that get listed by Fortune as the best places to work, kill their competitors in stock performance and all the things that drive stock performance.  She is creating stock index based on this and I’m going figure out how to invest in it and become rich .

She rated companies by being Good Employers, or Good Sellers, or Good Stewards of their communities.  The A rated firms kill their competitors.

Less than 8% of employees surveyed think their companies are good places to work.

What employees say about their employers is a damn accurate stock indicator.

It’s impossible to sustain competitive advantage without being a good employer.

Three essentials to becoming a good company by being a good employer.

1. Be inspiring –Have purpose to your work
2. Be Committed–Work gives people an opportunity to learn and to help others.  Let them to that
3. Be Exacting–Get the employees data, good data, to work with to support their efforts to become a good employers.  LEt them act on it.

Additional comments on Committed(discretionary effort hinges on this)  Layoff is the last resort(employees are not disposable assets) all win when the company wins, investing in  training to develop this asset.

This requires HR to get strategic in growing the people.

We might just have to review her book too.  Good Company:  Business Success in the Era of Worthiness. 

She also spent time talking about how Technology Driven People Power will insist that this happen of bad companies wil go out of business.  The transparency of Technology Driven People Power.

Wish you were all here.  Plan on the Fall GAzelles/Fortune Growth Summit in Las Vegas in October.  I get four people to come the ticket for you will go down $500.

Insights From Jim Loehr–Author of The Power of Full Engagement and The Only Way To Win (his latest book).  He’s a performance psychologist, which means he doesn’t work on helping damaged people become normal, he works on taking normal people to great.

He pulls together lots of things we know intuitively, but ignore in our behavior.  Research Based.  He’s got the data to support everything he presents.

–”The species is not engineered to do what we ask ourselves to do”

Critical Insights

1. Human beings are multidimensional fully integrated energy systems.  Energy is what cuts across all systems (biological, chemical, kinetic, spiritual, and mental).  We have four energy systems:  Physical, Emotional, Mental and Spiritual.  It’s how we are wired.
2. Most important skill for maximizing health, happiness and performance is managing energy–spending it and restoring it.
3. Human beings oscillate in all dimensions.  All energy sources oscillate. Expend in one and recover in another.
4. Protection from stress erodes capacity.  In all energy systems.  Stress exposure triggers growth.  As long as their is recovery after energy is spent on the stress.
5. Greatest gift we can give is “Full Engagement” in others in the moment we engage with them.
6. Humans are mission specific species.  No purpose, chaos reigns.  Must be purpose to what you do.
7. Your ultimate missions gives you the power of your “best self”
8. Get the purpose right.
9. To grow your business, care about, nourish and challenge  your people to grow as people.  (its not about the business stupid, it’s a vehicle for their growth that grows the business.
10. Most important growth is in character

Know your humility quotient.  Balance humility with drive–Can only happen with purpose.  Hubris gets people killed.

The path to greatness is learning it’s not about us.

The best part of listening to him, is that he wasn’t a motivational speaker.  He’s done the research, he has the data.  This was cold hard facts about character driving performance and building character muscles.

Think about why you are here for others.  Defining that is your purpose, than you can become extraordinary.

I’m so impressed that I’m changing up the Lunch and LEarn Schedule to do his books. Next up will be The Power of Full Engagement

The root word of original or orginaility is origin.  Which means go back to beginning to find what was good and then update that to today situation.

Survey of Gazelles Client Companies is that a shift has occurred in what is the important Decision of the Four Decisions right now.

• Was Strategy.  It’s now People–The War for Talent has begun.

When Senior Management uses SWOT Analysis–Strengths,  Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threat–They get too bogged down in the here and now and don’t see the big picture.  This is no longer a good tool for senior management.  Good for Middle Management.

• Senior Management should use SWT–inherent STRENGTHS, inherent WEAKNESSES, and outside TRENDS.
• Frontline should keep using SSK–Start Stop and Keep.
• Here’s a link to our article in The Daily News on this subject  Market Myopia-Blame the SWOT

Finally, the biggest insight I had is this question.

• If the biggest expense item (translate ASSET) of any company is staffing expense, why is the CFO uninvolved in making sure all payroll related money is spent wisely so that the ASSET grows, that people grow, that people get trained well, that the right people are hired?  They make sure all the other asset expenditures are spent well.    Something to ponder