PlantSuccess Newsletter
Volume IV, Issue 12
19 May 2004
Dear Subscriber:
I must begin with
apologies to my British friends and others who made me aware of how wrong I was
to call Roger Bannister -- perhaps the worlds most famous miler an Australian.
Of course I knew better; now I will never forget. Maurice Wilkins expressed
the view of many when he wrote, can't take away one of England's best sporting achievements....
he was knighted for it....
By recruiting speakers from industry leaders for PlantSuccess, we have recognized the achievements of more than 100 managers and other decision makers, all making a significant difference.
On a much larger
scale, the World Business Forum was held
at Radio City Music Hall last week and 4500 people heard presentations from an incredible
range of speakers, leaders in business, academia and politics: Lou Gerstner, Jack
Welch, Anne Mulcahy, Benjamin Zander, Michael Porter, Jim Collins, Philip Kotler,
Jeremy Siegel, Rudy Giuliani and Bill Clinton.
Laying claim to
the title The Worlds Largest Gathering of Business Executives, this event receives
extensive coverage from a broad range of sources; InformationWeek.com did
a nice job with its reports. I have not been able to determine if the presentations
are or will be available and, if so, the format or cost. If you have a particular
interest in any of the speakers, many have websites and/or have written extensively
in their area of expertise.
Copies of the
presentations from the recent PlantSuccess Gulf Coast 2004 are available for downloading,
at no cost, at www.PlantSuccess.com.
These join the presentations from all other conferences and have been popular with
a very broad range of interested parties from around the world.
Plans are underway
for PlantSuccess Northeast 2004 21 October at the PHL Airport Marriott. Reserve
this date in your calendar, plan on joining us and look to future Newsletters and
our website for additional information.
Carl Howk, Chairman
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Current Links
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Business
Execs Get Lessons In Leadership
From the World
Business Forum, key characteristics of great leaders according to former New
York Mayor Rudy Giuliani:
• They must have
a philosophy and not just be guided by public-opinion polls.
• They must also
be optimists; "People are drawn to solutions to their problems."
• They must have
courage and must relentlessly prepare.
• They must have
the ability to communicate.
Jack Welch,
the former CEO of General Electric Co. who's known for his passion for developing people, told the
attendees that he's surprised at how little attention is paid to succession planning.
"Strategy is about getting good leaders first and strategy second," he
said.
What separates
leaders of good companies from those of great companies? To Stanford University
professor and author Jim Collins,
it's humility, will, and ambition for the work, not for themselves. READ
MORE
The second day
of the World Business Forum focused on strategy and execution and how business leaders
are able to link the two.
Former IBM
chairman Lou Gerstner
began the day by using his 10-year tenure at the company as a case study of how
the right approach to leadership can lead to positive business change. He said there
are three fundamentals to ensuring effective change management -- focus, execution,
and leadership.
• On the issue
of focus, it's important for business leaders to be selective and committed in the
businesses they pursue.
• Regarding execution,
all good companies have at least one thing in common, so they must learn to learn
to out-execute the competition.
• Regarding leadership,
" the most underrated practice of institutional transformation," adding
that "the best leaders create high-performance cultures, become change agents,
and are all about visibility."
Gerstner acknowledged
that focus, execution, and leadership aren't new. But he said the difference lies
in how the business leader communicates those concepts and follows through on them.
Consultant
Michael Porter then
took the stage to discuss strategy, which he said "has lost its meaning"
among many business and tech leaders. Porter provided five tests of a sound business
strategy:
• A unique value
proposition compared with the competition
• A different-tailored
value change
• A clear trade-off
in choosing what not to do
• Activities that
fit together and reinforce each other
• Continuity
On the last
point, Gerstner and Porter appear to disagree: While Gerstner recommends reinvention,
Porter said he believes that reinvention and constant shifts "are costly."
READ MORE
The PlantSuccess
Newsletter generates a substantial number of visits to our website, we welcome the
interest and the access to previous issues of the Newsletter which are available
there. If you'd like to share this newsletter with a colleague, just forward a copy.
Subscribe or cancel by sending a request to Carl.Howk@PlantSuccess.com
Full links to
Volume IV, Issue 12 Newsletter articles: