7 Bad Questions; Google’s 2 New Traits; Unified Theory of Scaling; Prediction Intelligence

"…insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

Stop Asking These 7 Questions of Children (and Adults) — here's another great blog post by Mr. Contrarian Ozan Varol on the seven questions you should stop asking and the one's you should ask instead. As an example:

I'm printing, posting, and asking the new 7 questions – I'll let you know how it goes. Hope you find them equally insightful.

Unified Theory of Scaling — One of the more entertaining yet insightful books I've read in years is Tasmin Woolley-Barker's Teeming: How Superorganisms Work Together to Build Infinite Wealth on a Finite Planet (and your company can too). Notes Tamsin:

For this quick list of deep patterns and components go right to the short chapter titled "The Mycelial Way: A Quick Guide." SPro and book club members will get her book next week and Tamsin will be keynoting our ScaleUp Summit May 22 – 23, New Orleans

Five Keys to Super Growth — these are like super powers. The five broad components superorganisms have utilized to survive and thrive for billions of years, which we can utilize in our firms, are:

1. Cultivate Collective Intelligence
2. Nurture Swarm Creativity
3. Rely on Distributed Leadership
4. Depend on Reciprocity and Sharing
5. Compound Regenerative Value

Again, I've read extensively and this is the closest I've seen to a unified theory of what organizations must do to scale exponentially. The 12 deep patterns distributed among these five components are the real "how to's" that all AI and human driven systems will use to build infinite wealth. Plus, she's so funny in how she teaches these ideas. I look forward to meeting and learning from Tasmin, one of the three women keynoters, at our ScaleUp Summit in New Orleans. See you there.

Google's Two New Traits of Great Managers — Google measures everything, and that includes what makes great managers. Interestingly, coaching is #1 on their list of the eight traits they discovered back in 2008 when they embarked on Project Oxygen – I still maintain the term "coach" needs to replace the term "manager" i.e. sales coach vs. sales manager. As the company has evolved Google went back to test the original eight and discovered two additional traits that have proved critical to team effectiveness, retention, engagement, etc.:

1. Facilitates collaboration across teams
2. Is a strong decision maker

The first one is critical because real work gets done cross functionally. The second because generally a good decision now is better than a great decision later. And nothing constrains progress like a non-decision and non-decision maker. Take two minutes to read the details of all 10 traits in this Google Re:Work article. Thank you to Troy Schrock, The CEO Advantage, for sharing this link.

"Prediction Intelligence" — this is the unifying theme of our upcoming ScaleUp Summit. The late Dr. Deming noted that the primary job of a leader is prediction and this is precisely the role of Artificial Intelligence (the #1 topic at Davos) according to the authors of Prediction Machines (keynoting our Summit). Add in "intelligence" – as in collective intelligence, conversational intelligence (great questions!), etc. – topics addressed by our other keynoters – and you have a powerful combination to dominate your industry.

CEO-BOOTCAMP: spend 3.5 days with Verne, serial entrepreneur John Ratliff, and 9 other CEOs in a beautiful retreat setting, addressing the constraints holding you back, your business, and your industry. May 29 – June 1 (YPO-only); October 2 – 5; and 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? Click here to watch Gazelles International President Keith Cupp describes the four most important attributes of successful clients. Contact us at [email protected] for more information.

And if you're interested in becoming a world-class certified Gazelles International coach, please go to gicoaches.com/becomeacoach for more information. If you determine that we're a fit and wish to join our premier organization, we invite you to contact our Dir. of Coach Engagement at [email protected] or 877.217.2253 ext.700.

TECHNOLOGY:

Create Accountability – Drive Execution
Click Here to Watch a video example.

Align is your cloud based business operating system designed to keep you on your path to executing your goals. See, in real time every person in your organization and how they are progressing on their priorities – alongside how they Align to the Company Priorities! Scale Up your Rockefeller Habits implementation with www.aligntoday.com – on your computer, tablet or phone. $5.00 per month gets you started.

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.