Legend Bill Bowerman; Cognitive Health; Where Good Ideas Come From; Rhythm Webcast

"…keeping you great"

HEADLINES:

The Legend of Bill Bowerman — co-founder of Nike, Bowerman is quite possibly the greatest track coach of all time, having trained 31 Olympic athletes, 51 All-Americans, 12 American record-holders, 24 NCAA champions and 16 sub-4 minute milers including the famous miler Steve Prefontaine. He was also a fan of starting meetings at an odd time — like 7:27am, as explained in this 38 second clip from the movie about Bowerman's life (Donald Sutherland plays the role of Bowerman). Show this clip at your next weekly huddle and make sure your meetings start at an odd time! Thanks to Mike Norton, partner with Axiom One, for sending me the clip.

Running Halts Cognitive Decline — brain fitness is essential to our information-driven economy. ExecuThink will share results at the Fortune Leadership Summit of the work they've been doing with a handful of execs of growth firms to return their cognitive functioning to that of a 20 year old (OK, no jokes!). Research also shows that just a few days of running will also create more grey matter. Check out this article on how one Canadian entrepreneur is actively improving the energy and "brain power" of his employees. Thanks to Craig Morantz, Leed's (who supplies our Summit bags), for pointing me to this important article.

Where Good Ideas Come From — the most important thing execs of growth firms give their companies is good ideas. So how can you increase the number and power of these ideas? Steven Berlin Johnson, author of one of my top ten favorite books, Emergence, has a new Malcolm Gladwell-like book out entitled Where Good Ideas Come From (book club members will receive it this week with my recommendation of which chapters to read first). Challenging many long-held myths, Johnson provides 7 concrete "how to's" that will increase the flow of good ideas in your company. One key is the simple notion that piling in knowledge, over a long period of time, is critical to better ideas i.e. Bill Gates' "Think Weeks."

Drives Me Nuts — this is why I go crazy when an exec says to me "we have enough initiatives going on that we don't want to learn anything else right now." Ugh!! Ideally, you want to pile in as much knowledge into your brain as early as you can so the information has time to incubate and combine with your life experiences. That's why I push hard to have your exec team at ALL of our Summits – we don't repeat speakers (except Jim Collins when he has a new book) so if you miss a Summit you miss an entire body of knowledge that won't be at your disposal when you need it, possibly ten years from now! And I pick the authors of the best dozen books, out of the 8000 published each year, to keynote our Summits. Invest two days every six months and you'll get a string of great ideas for powering your business.

Steven Berlin Johnson Online Seminar — available on-demand 24/7 to educate your team, we just released a one-hour online seminar featuring Steven Berlin Johnson and his book Where Good Ideas Come From. $99 for an individual license; $495 for a company license; it's an inexpensive way to keep the knowledge flowing – and it's no risk since we have a full money back guarantee. We will continue to bring your team the latest ideas for growing your business — one hour per month, four days per year. Click here for more detailed information on the program.

How to Track Cascading Priorities and Metrics — to take a load off your brains and make your weekly management meeting much more effective, 3 years ago we launched Rhythm, software that helps you track (using a Red, Yellow, Green, SuperGreen scale) all the cascading priorities and metrics within your business (it can be a spreadsheet and paperwork nightmare, otherwise). We've just released Version 7.0 and are hosting a Private Webcast on Friday, April 13th at 1:00pm EST for those that want to see a demo. It's best for companies greater than $10 million in revenue. To Register or email/call Deb Colson [email protected] 704-728-1701.

Jorge Partidas, CEO of WAU Movil, the largest mobile integrator in Latin America, has been using our Rhythm system to drive his firm. As a preview, here are Partidas's thoughts in this 3 minute video.