Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others

The book review for this week is Elevate by Robert Glazer

Robert Glazer is a serial entrepreneur who has founded a number of businesses including Acceleration Partners and Brand Cycle. One of his secrets to success is his passion for helping individuals and organizations build their capacity to continuously improve and outperform.

Play By the Rules But Be Ferocious

“Play by the rules but be ferocious” is the advice given by Phil Knight, co-founder and past chairman of Nike. I believe that all of us need to take this to heart and make some adjustments in how we lead and run our businesses!

There is no need to be ruthless, dishonest, nefarious, or unscrupulous in any way. However, if we want to grow our businesses we need a “fire in our belly” . . . we need to be ferocious!

Can you imagine if your favorite professional sports team was not driven to succeed? I know we always complain about the overall performance of our teams (like the Calgary Flames!) but when you watch them play, they do play the game ferociously. Anything less would be pathetic!

What if this season they decide they are going to play a non-contact style of hockey? Or what if their leadership fails to create and communicate a strategic plan for the season? What if they fail to assign team members to positions or to clearly define the roles each team member is to play? What if they don’t build a sales and marketing plan and fail to reach the sales targets they need to remain viable?

Ideas and Stuff Podcast!

Thinking Business

This week’s book summary is a podcast link. I was recently featured on the “Ideas and Stuff” podcast episode 50! We covered a lot of ground in about 30 minutes, including:

  • Vision, Mission, Values
  • BHAG
  • Strategy
  • Goals
  • Managing risk
  • Business failure
  • 15 Minute Business Blueprint
  • Mastermind Groups

Check it out here and let me know what you think in the comments below!

The Critical Importance of Principles in Business

One of the most important things any business leader can do for their business longevity, is to establish the principles by which they and their business will operate.

These principles form the foundation on which trust and relationships are built with all of the stakeholders of the business; shareholders, employees, customers, and suppliers.

Berkshire Hathaway is an example of a highly successful business from pretty much all perspectives. They are a solid company with decades of successful and profitable operations.

In 1983, Warren Buffett established 13 principles that defined how Berkshire Hathaway was to operate. He first published these in what he called Berkshire’s “An Owner’s Manual.” These 13 ideologies are still valid today at Berkshire and followed closely in all the business that they conduct.

Many of these are directly applicable to any business. We can all benefit from reviewing them and perhaps implementing them in our own businesses!

Berkshire’s “An Owners Manual”

I have highlighted seven of the thirteen principles below:

How To Create A Powerful Newsletter And Why You Should Care

If your business does not issue a monthly newsletter, you are missing out on one of the easiest and most powerful ways to communicate to your employees!

A properly written newsletter can deliver timely and valuable information to employees in a consistent way that is hard to match with other types of media.

I have seen many examples of company newsletters over the years, from large oil companies to small engineering firms . . . from simple one pagers to monstrous 20+ pagers!

My favorite newsletter was one I received at a small employee owned organization. Although this one was not monthly, it did provide a great update on the company health, the money we were making, and where the business leaders thought we were headed.

What does a great newsletter look like and what are the benefits?