Most Complained About Company; Theme for 2018; 3 Question Sequence; Place to Visit This Summer
January 18, 2018
Bezos’ Approach; Leaders #1 Job; Appsters’ Co-founder; Global Economies
February 1, 2018

Most Admired; Most Overrated; Introverts in Sales; Sustaining Joy; How to Be the Best

"…insights for scaleups"

HEADLINES:

The Untethered Soul Onlinea new 8-part series by serial entrepreneur Michael Singer, it's outstanding. More info below, but first…

YPO-Only Workshop winner, this year, of three global "best of the best" awards for YPO International, the next 2.5 day Scaling Up workshop for 18 YPOers and their teams (6 slots left) is April 10 – 12 Las Vegas at hotel SLS. Day Chair is Wei Chen. For more info

The Introvert's Edge…In Selling in an era where people would rather be educated, not sold, the title of Matthew Pollard's recently released book, The Introvert's Edge: How the Quiet and Shy Can Outsell Anyone, says it all. Towards the end of Chapter 1 is a summary of the book subtitled "7 Steps to the Introvert's Edge." Take 3 minutes to scan pages 25 – 34. Then read the rest of the book for the details behind each step. It's the kind of "playbook" approach that Jack Daly suggests.

How People Get Better at What They Do brilliant physician Atul Gawande, author of multiple award-winning books including The Checklist Manifesto, makes a case in this 16-minute TED talk how critical it is for professionals to improve and perfect their craft through better habits of thinking and learning. And more specifically, the importance of getting a coach. Fun fact at 5:38 in the talk, he notes that coaching in sports was a very American thing. In 1875 Yale and Harvard played one of the first American-rules football games. Yale hired a head coach; Harvard did not. And over the next three decades Harvard won only four times. They then hired a coach!! Atul goes on to explain how he had slowed in his improvement in the surgical suite until he hired a coach to observe him and advise. Do you have a coach? Take a moment to listen to Atul's beautiful stories (and what he learned from his coach that made him a better surgeon – start at 7:15 in the talk) – and then get a coach. Thank you to Adam Grant for pointing me to this TED talk.

Fortune's Most Admired List topping $900 billion in market cap this morning and topping the World's Most Admired list for the 11th year in a row is Apple. Based on their reputation among 3900 global business leaders, Amazon, Alphabet (lesson – "A" names are golden?), Berkshire Hathaway, and Starbucks round out the top five among 1500 global firms. Notes Alan Murray, Fortune's President, in his daily blog:

Among company leaders, Mark Zuckerberg got most mentions as "the most overrated CEO," while Satya Nadella (Microsoft's CEO) was voted "most underrated." (Jamie Dimon and Elon Musk made top five on both lists!)

For details

How to Sustain Joy – Michael Singer's New Online Course growing a company can be stressful, with the rate of depression among entrepreneurs one of the highest. And just the pressures from everyday life can cause your mind to bombard you with gut-wrenching negative thoughts. So how do you let this go? Serial entrepreneur Michael Singer, author of the huge best-seller The Untethered Soul and The Surrender Experiment has a new video series titled "Living from a Place of Surrender, The Untethered Soul in Action." I'm in the middle of the eight-session, nine-hour course and it's excellent. You can learn more about the $197 online course at http://untetheredsoul.com/surrender-course or if you want, you can get started with a free 3-Part Video series using this link. En-Joy!

EO's 30th Anniversary – Four Golden Rules last Thursday in Washington, DC we celebrated the 30th anniversary of EO and specifically the first ever EO chapter meeting January 1988 which was a joint event between the newly formed DC chapter and YPO. The guest speaker that evening 30 years ago was Bill Marriott. Here's the Inc. piece highlighting my keynote at the event last week along with four "golden rules" for scaling. Thank you to Marissa Levin, author of Built to Scale (about advisory boards), for writing the article.

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 back you, your business, and your industry. April 3 – 6; May 29 – June 1 (YPO-only); and October 2 – 5.

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.

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.