Blame the SWOT; Replace with SWT; Advisory Board Advice; Best Values; Nov 13 – 15 Shanghai

"…keeping you great" 

HEADLINES:

Advisory Boards
— I'm looking for examples where you've chosen to work one-on-one with your
advisory board members vs. host regularly scheduled board meetings. Or maybe you
do a combination of both. Email me at

[email protected] – this is for a new book I'm co-authoring — thanks.

Blame the SWOT
– my
May "Growth Guy" column challenges the usefulness of the age-old SWOT
analysis (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats) which I maintain
has backed many organizations into a corner – creating what I call
inside/industry myopia. Rather than throw out the SWOT, I suggest it's useful
for mid-managers to use.

Use the SWT
— For senior leaders I propose a new tool called SWT that focuses more on the
boundaries – the inherent
Strengths and Weaknesses of an organization that aren't going to change; and the
larger societal, technological, and demographic Trends impacting all industries.
A limited group of our coaching partners have been testing the approach (as have
I) and it's proving powerful.

Take 3 minutes to scan the article. We'll release a one-page tool after the
Leadership Summit next week where we'll role it out to the rest of our 120+
coaching partners.

Love These Values
– take
15 seconds and click on this list of Core Values/Images for professional
engineering and services firm McIntosh Perry – this is precisely the kind of
representation of core values we recommend – unique, memorable, phrases (vs.
single words), with images that make them visual. With 130 full time employees
and 30 to 50 part time people working in 5 to 10 locations at any one time, Todd
Perry, President, reached the point where it's not easy for him to have direct
contact with everyone. In this case, a clearly articulated set of core values is
critical to keep the culture from drifting.

Onboarding New Employees
— notes Les Rubenovitch, the Gazelles coach for McIntosh Perry, "they have
totally embraced the power and benefits of clearly communicating their Core
Values…cleverly capturing what matters most to them. They launched this with
fanfare internally and now everyone, in all locations, is aware and increasingly
aligned in living their Core Values. And every new full time employee and every
part time person goes through the corporate on-boarding program which is largely
based on the Core Values." Remember, the word inculcate means "to bring into the
culture" which is precisely what your initial orientation process should do.

Axiom Book Award
— congrats to Geoff Smart for his book Leadocracy
which won the Axiom Book Award/Silver Medal (#2) of all business leadership
books published in the past year. I strongly recommend you purchase a copy and
give to every public sector leader (mayors, governors, etc) you know. We need
better government leadership!!

Here is the press release.

UK Needs More "Gazelles" — speaking of better government leadership, I was
interviewed in London last week by
Business Review Europe.
Vince Cable, the new business secretary for the UK, has been touting the need
for his country to find and support more "gazelles." I suggest the challenge is
for governments and the voting population to quit treating and seeing gazelles
as big companies – elephants. In attacking big company excesses and tax havens,
they end up punishing gazelles – and the big companies escape anyway, with their
huge lobbies and tight relationships with government officials. Here's
a link to the broader interview. Thanks to Julie Walters, EO London member
and founder/CEO of PR firm

TutorReilly, for arranging this interview (London, BTW, is on fire –
construction and growth everywhere – the empire is back as my British friends
continue to remind me!).

Nov 13 – 15 Shanghai YPO Workshop – registration
is now open – the first 2.5 day "Making the Rockefeller Habits Rock"
workshop in China for YPOers and their executive teams. Limited to 15 teams (7
have already signed up), Wei Chen is the YPO Chair for this event. Simultaneous
translation will be available.

Leadership Summit Next Week — looking forward to seeing all of you attending the Leadership
Summit next week – second biggest audience we've ever hosted. See you in
Orlando!