Coach vs. Manager; Summer Family Events; Kayak Atlantic to Pacific; Portland and Madison
May 29, 2012
Power of One; Halftime; Do More Faster; Homeless to Harvard
June 7, 2012

Bubble or not; Essence of Strategy; Another Family Vacation Idea; June 5 Webinar

"…keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

June 5 Free Webinar — "4 Things You Must Do to Lead a High Performance Team" – more details below, but first…

Bubble or not? — Mary Meeker, the well-known partner at venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield Byers, has released her latest report on trends formatted as a series of quick read slides. Here's the outline:

  1. Basic Stats – shows mobile adoption rates by country; internet usage; interesting trends in mobile vs. desktop ad rates, etc
  2. Re-imagination — a bunch of slides comparing old vs. new ways we do everything
  3. Economy – mixed trends, negative bias
  4. 'USA Inc' – great news in tech; bad news everywhere else
  5. Bubble – or not? And the one internet IPO highlight/standout!

This is worth five minutes of time scanning through the slides.

Essence of Strategy — If you're fascinated by the inner workings of Apple, you won't want to miss Greg McKeown's HBR blog entitled "The One Thing CEOs Need to Learn from Apple." My favorite line "Jobs said in an interview with Betsy Morris in 2008, 'People think focus means saying 'yes' to the thing you've got to focus on. But that's not what it means at all. It means saying 'no' to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I'm actually as proud of the things we haven't done as the things we have done." And I love Greg's example of the CEO, unable to choose which of six product lines on which to focus, set a priority for each of the six and called that their strategy! This is worth another three minutes – lots of quotable lines and an excellent Steve Jobs video on having the guts to put the iPad on hold to do the iPhone.

Another Family Trip Idea — building on my suggested summer family trips, Bruce Crager, Director of Endeavor Management, shared the details of his annual Telluride, CO, outing with his children, their spouses, and his five grandchildren (7,6,5,4,and 2). Notes Crager, "On the first day I use large flip chart pages to list what they want to do during the week. And then each day we check off the ones we did (such as taking a hike). While they do not know it, they are learning goal setting and planning (figuring out how to do all the items on the list in one week) which I believe will be of real benefit to them as they grow up." Great idea!!

Pacific to Atlantic Adventure — to better frame the special opportunity to hike and kayak from the Pacific side of the continental divide across to the Atlantic coast in Panama, I mentioned Tuesday, this isn't a tourist offering. Only a few people have had the privilege to take the trip (Bruce Crager, mentioned above, is one of them). And it's only possible because of Earth Train's formal agreement with the Kuna tribe and their General Congress. As for the experience, notes Nathan Gray, founder of Earth Train and the well-known philanthropy pioneer who brought OxFam to the US, "you'll have moments of utter awe and reverence, as close as you may ever get to the experiences of Lewis and Clark." Go to www.earthtrain.org for more info.

Webinar — Sharpen your leadership skills — Join Patrick Thean for his next webcast, "4 Things You Must Do to Lead a High Performance Team", and learn 4 practical ways to improve your team performance. Patrick is the expert at helping businesses execute for growth. His specialty is providing practical insights and one-page tools to help companies grow faster by getting their teams focused, aligned and accountable. Patrick will share 2 simple tools to help you lead your high performance teams on June 5 at 1 pm EST. Click here to register.

Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish
Verne Harnish is founder of the world-renowned Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) and chaired for fifteen years EO’s premiere CEO program, the “Birthing of Giants” and WEO’s “Advanced Business” executive program both held at MIT. Founder and CEO of Gazelles, a global executive education and coaching company with over 150 coaching partners on six continents, Verne has spent the past three decades helping companies scale-up. The “Growth Guy” syndicated columnist, he’s also the Venture columnist for FORTUNE magazine. He’s the author of Scaling Up (Rockefeller Habits 2.0); Mastering the Rockefeller Habits; and along with the editors of Fortune, authored The Greatest Business Decisions of All Times," for which Jim Collins wrote the foreword. Verne also chairs FORTUNE Magazine’s annual Leadership and Growth Summits and serves on several boards including chairman of The Riordan Clinic and the newly launched Geoversity. He is an investor in many scale-ups. A father of four, he enjoys piano, tennis, and magic as a card-carrying member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians.