Achieving Business Excellence

I am extremely thankful this week because a group of college students have restored my faith in the leadership potential of the next generation. This semester, in partnership with a great company in my hometown called TutoringZone, we offered a special leadership training program called “Let The GATOR Lead” in conjunction with the Warrington College of Business Administration at the University of Florida. Every other week or so, a group of students would get together with a student facilitator and go through a chapter in my book: “Excellence by Design: Leadership – the six key characteristics of outstanding leaders,” and talk about the principles I put forth and what those leadership characteristics meant to them as college students.

Out of the 250+ students that originally signed up – more than 130 wrote essays that were judged by me and several senior executives from Fortune 100 companies in order to choose three winners that received cash scholarships as well as donations to their favorite charity and a small reward for the rest of the people in their discussion group.

All-in-all the essays added up to about 500 pages of reading, and I must say it rivaled the best leadership books I have read in the last few years. The essays were thoughtful, focused, provocative and entertaining – I could not be more thankful for all the wonderful ideas and feedback these amazing students gave to me about how they view leadership and the way they want to lead their generation. Below you will find the top three winners and two honorable mention recipients, I think there’s some wonderful stuff here that you will enjoy great deal – and I have to say that it is a shame I cannot put all the essays here on my blog – the students did an incredible job and I’m very, very thankful for what they taught me!  Continue reading “I am VERY thankful for…” »

Just a few weeks ago I had the great honor of presenting a program at the Apple Specialist Marketing Conference. My talk was entitled “The New Normal” and focused on how these folks, who sold such incredible Apple products, could continue to be successful as the realities of business and economics remained in constant fluctuation. The talk was even more poignant given the fact that Steve Jobs had passed away just a week earlier. Here is a very brief excerpt of some of the ideas I shared on how I feel companies can survive and thrive in… The New Normal.

PS – Do not forget that I am participating in this fantastic event…

I saw this post and liked the ideas so much that I asked to run it here as a guest post. Kyle Lagunas makes some excellent points…

In recent years, the most successful companies have focused less on perks and more on offering their employees something better: a connection to the company. Three prominent start-ups – Groupon, Zynga and Dropbox – are each cultivating lasting company cultures, and I’ve taken a look to see what’s working and what’s not. Continue reading “A Guest Post on Building a Great Culture” »

As summer officially comes to a close I wanted to squeeze in this great guest post from Tom Asacker which I saw on his fantastic blog Opportunity Screams. I think it absolutely hits the nail on the head: We need more LOVE in business…  Continue reading “The Summer of LOVE” »

Last week I delivered a workshop on the “Leader of the Future” to a group of Directors at the Florida Recreation and Parks Association annual meeting (The FRPA is my longest standing client – 17 years – wow!). Most of these folks have 20 to 30 years in their careers and I told them at the end of the workshop that there was probably very little “new” information that I taught them… but my goal was simply to remind them of the core fundamentals of business excellence and challenge them to take a long hard look in the mirror and see if they were actually living these things every single day in their organizations. Continue reading “The Knowing-Doing Gap” »

In just the past week I have received more than a dozen emails from people who promise to teach me the “Secret To Success“… for ONLY $499  I Googled one of the people who sent me such a note and could not find him anywhere on the internet? No career history, no connection to any company, no awards, no charity work – as far as I could tell he has never accomplished anything.  Yet I still have a spam folder full of people who can make me “mega-rich working just four hours a week!” 

The “Secret to Success” is NOT for sale — it is free to anyone who wants to learn it – and these bogus emails upset me so much that I decided to put together this video to outline the very best ideas I have ever learned (so far) about what it TRULY takes to build an incredibly successful life. Whether you are a high school or college student, work in an office or factory, run or own a company – no matter how much education you have… I honestly believe that the ideas I share in this video (for FREE) can make a dramatic positive impact on your life and the lives of those you love… IF… you take these amazingly powerful ideas and apply them in your life every day. Continue reading “The REAL Secrets to Success – for FREE!!!” »

How do you build a 25 billion-dollar company? 

PEOPLE + SERVICE + CONNECTION TO THE CUSTOMER

Yes, it is just that awesomely simple!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxIwlm8QX8Y&feature=player_profilepage