300% ROI; 3% Solution; Games Buyers Play; Dr. Laurie Bassi

"…keeping you great" 

HEADLINES:

Games Buyers Play – the
latest "Growth Guy" column highlights pitfalls in selling a business – and
the tricks buyers use to drive down the price. I actually met a couple
professors who teach acquirers how to do this to unsuspecting entrepreneurs.
Seller beware!

3%, Use it or Lose It — Patrick McGovern, the famed Chairman and Founder of
International Data Group (IDG), was the first celebrity CEO to keynote the
executive program I launched and held at MIT called "The Birthing of Giants."
Today, one of the
Forbes 400 wealthiest entrepreneurs who recently gave $350 million
to MIT for brain research, he impressed me with his three simple rules for
growing each division of his company. Scattered all over the planet launching
tech publications in a fast charging industry, each leader had to hit three
targets, three of every five quarters:

1. 
   Grow twice
   the rate of the local market – his way to set revenue targets in each country
2. 
   Take 10% net
   to the bottom line – and spending on growth wasn't an excuse for low profit
3. Spend 3%
   of payroll on training – use it or lose it

McGovern explained that the only investment critical to
growth was employee and management development, yet he knew that under the time
pressure of having to grow the business and cost pressures of having to net 10%,
the first thing leaders will do in the short run is cut out the time and cost of
training. As CEO, like Jack Welch, McGovern knew this was the one issue he had
to stand firm about and mandate. The job of the CEO is to make the best
decisions today that have a long term positive impact on the business tomorrow.

300% ROI — and through some of the most exhaustive research ever
supported, training and development was found to out-return any other investment
a business owner could make – more than any R&D, hard, or capital investment. In
fact, companies that made this investment achieved:

Here's a link to a white paper Bud Arquilla, CEO of the Gazelles200
initiative, wrote to detail the findings – an investment Jack Welch calculated
to provide an infinite return.

Dr. Laurie Bassi — whom I quoted above, is author of Good
Company: Business Success in the Worthiness Era; was director of research at Saba Software; director of two
US government commissions; and a tenured professor of economics and public
policy at Georgetown University. She is also the chair of the board at Bassi
Investments – an investment firm that invests in companies with superior human
capital management capabilities – consistently outperforming the S&P 500.
Previously, she served as vice president for research at ASTD (American Society
of Training and Development) where she led a groundbreaking and exhaustive
multi-year research initiative that brought hard numbers to the "soft" world of
training and development. Book club members are receiving her book and she's
keynoting the upcoming

Leadership Summit in Orlando May 9 – 10. Make the investment.