Buffett’s #1 Priority; Buffett’s #1 Rule; Apple’s #1 Ranking; Ford’s #1 Discipline
March 3, 2011
Deepening Relationships; Education for Customers; Leadership vs. Growth
March 15, 2011

Resilient Execs; Disrupt Your Industry; What is Pambazuka; Latin American Summits



"…keeping you great"

HEADLINES:
 
The Resilient Executive: A Better Way to Work — this is the title of my latest March syndicated "Growth Guy" column pulling together the best tips from Tony Schwartz's book Be Excellent at Anything. The column highlights the four kinds of energy leaders must maintain and how to use ultradian rhythms to drive up, immensely, your productivity. Tony covers, in more depth, this material in his one-hour online seminar available on-demand 24/7 for a fee – perfect for a weekly or monthly management meeting educational activity.

Disrupt Your Industry — Luke Williams, author of Disrupt, wrote a great "how-to" article on disrupting your industry, providing a 3 step process and several killer questions to get you to "think the unthinkable." His process will also help you find the X-Factor in your industry – a 10 to 100 times underlying advantage over your competition. Thanks to Toby MacKelden, with the Australian-based Indigo Media Group (Real Weddings magazine), for pointing me to this important article and Luke's work – I'm reading his book next.

"Pambazuka" Morning Huddle — Pambazuka is Swahili for "new dawn" and is what Barclay bank workers call their morning huddle in Africa. Notes The Telegraph writer Damian Reece, "Staff at every branch across the country gather before the doors open for a prayer, a song, applause and a general feel good moment about their day ahead." Consider it an alternative daily huddle agenda!! Here's a link to the article on how Barclay's new CEO is forging ahead in Africa, where the GDP growth rate has been twice that of the UK and US. Thank you to Kevin Lawrence, our global coach (India, Middle East, and Canada), for pointing me to this news item.

Why You Might Need a 60% Interest Rate Loan — if you're short of funds and need money for a couple months to fund an inventory deal where you'll make 30%, then a 5% per month loan if better than nothing. The point – there's a lot of ways to look at bank financing and Ami Kassar, founder of Multifunding, is helping small business owners access these banking options. Here's a recent NY Times article on his work. Or meet him at our May 18th "Four Decisions: Rockefeller Habits" workshop in Philly – he's helping sponsor the workshop.

Ghostwriting (and video) for CEOsLou Bortone, who has ghostwritten several of the CEO books I've recommended, the latest being Tony Hartl's Selling Sunshine, has finished his last book and is available. I continue to strongly recommend that every company leader write a book – it puts you at the top of your industry instantly and the book serves as a great recruiting and marketing tool – and should be on every leader's "bucket list" – a great legacy for your children. The great news is you can hire someone to do it for you. Lou is also helping companies produce killer videos. Let me know and I'll connect you to Lou.

Latin American Growth Summits — May 24 Mexico City; May 25 Monterrey, here is a link to the program (I'll be sharing our new 7 Strata of Strategy framework). Liz Wiseman, author of my favorite leadership book Multipliers; and Guy Parsons, guru of executing Lean, will be keynoting as well.

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.