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2009 News
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Management Next
"How to Hire a CEO":
"It's the toughest call in tough economic times. Get it wrong and it'll cost you plenty"
posted: December, 2009
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Smart Planet
"The surprising secrets of winning CEOs":
September 9, 2009
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Investor's Business Daily ... (presents "Follow Leaders' Integrity")
Featuring information from Jason Jennings latest book "Hit the Ground Running"
July 23, 2009
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CHANGE THIS ... (presents within PDF file)
Jason Jennings: Hit the Ground Running:
TAKING CHARGE has never been easy
July 2009
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First Friday Book Synopsis
"... like CliffNotes on steroids"
July 2009
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Michael McCurry's Corner
Article about one of Jason Jennings' recent speeches at the PCMA Conference
June 13, 2009
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Jason is published in largest circulated Indian business daily - The Economic Times
"A Fish out of Water"
June 2009
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Management Next
"How to Hire a CEO":
"It's the toughest call in tough economic times. Get it wrong and it'll cost you plenty"
posted: December, 2009
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Smart Planet
"The surprising secrets of winning CEOs":
September 9, 2009
> Read article ONLINE
| The surprising secrets of winning CEOs
Jason Jennings is the NY Times Bestselling Author of several books including Its Not the Big that Eat the Small its the Fast that Eat the Slow (with Laurence Haughton), Less is More, Think Big Act Small and the just released Hit the Ground Running.
As someone USA Today named one of the three most in-demand business speakers on the planet, Jason finds jewels in his research and tells stories with clarity few can match.
It's a pleasure to have him talk about his new book and share the surprising and sometimes counter-intuitive success secrets of the CEO's who have created the most value for their shareholders since 2000.
Jason, Did you find these CEO's to be smarter than everyone else?
No, I didn't find them to be smarter. They're all bright bulbs on the string but what differentiates them from their peers is their authenticity, humility, their determination to never make a decision without contemplating it's long term consequences and their genuine affection for their workers, customers, vendors and suppliers and shareholders. If you believe (as I do) that frequently dumb is smart and smart is dumb these leaders are incredible listeners who never tire of asking questions.
What surprised you?
After screening more than 120,000 companies and studying more than 20,000 in depth for my previous books I think I've developed a fairly accurate BS Meter and can state unequivocally that the needle never budged during the many hundreds of hours I spent with these guys. They don't do what they do for money. These are leaders who truly want to improve the economic condition of every stakeholder. Today, in business, when someone tells you that it's all the money they're also signaling they'll do anything to get the money and look where that mentality brought us. These guys are the real deal; true stewards.
What advice should leaders take away from your work?
They should forget everything conventional wisdom taught them remembering two things about conventional wisdom; that it brought us to the edge of financial disaster and that the most you can ever achieve by following conventional wisdom are conventional results.
Instead they should take the ten rules we discovered and make them their own. For example, a few of them:
1. Practice the golden rule in everything you do - you will reap exactly what you sow
2. Gain the belief of everyone around you instead of demanding of expecting respect.
3. Ask everyone around for help; don't pretend to have all the answers or the plan. Remember what happened to Carly Fiorina at HP. On her first day she announced to the company that she had the plan and strategy for HP. Everyone felt left out, came to hate her and her regal ways and during her reign she halved the companies value.
4. Work ruthlessly to simplify everything instead of making it more complicated.
5. Make sure that everyone in the company knows the strategy and their role in its achievement.
6. Cultivate a fierce sense of urgency in everyone because either things aren't going well and you need to fix them fast or things are going well but the world (and your circumstances) are going to change and you need to be ready.
How can Hit the Ground Running help a corporate manager or entrepreneur?
The rules in the book are truly a step by step guide to doing the rights things the right way and achieving results quickly. What more could anyone want?
How important is culture?
The right culture is the only competitive advantage a company can ever have! One day, somebody else will manufacture, sell and produce what you do better, faster and cheaper. Your competitors can steal your customers, your people, your marketing and duplicate your pricing. The only thing that truly belongs to any organization is it's culture. But, I emphasize again that it must be the right culture.
In this time of reinvention what is the advice you have for leaders?
It's time to become a fish out of water and reject the stupid advise that's been proffered by the business leaders we rushed to admire because of their money during the past decade. They've either been discredited, are going to jail or have been revealed for being boorish asses who didn't know of what they spoke. On pages 201 and 202 of my book I list the traits of the fish of water leader.
What's next for you?
Coming out at the end of the year is a book I've done with a doctor destined to become America's Heart Doctor. His name is Dr. John Kennedy and the book is titled, The 15 Minute Cure - How To Heal Your Heart and End Stress in Fifteen Minutes a Day. It's my first book out of the business and leadership genre and truly believe it will save millions of life's. Then, it's on to my next leadership book which I'm keeping a secret for a while. I did manage to learn a valuable life lesson this summer. I took off six weeks which we spent at our family lakeside lodge in northern Michigan alongside the bear, moose, deer, wolves and soaring eagles. During my time there I didn't think about books or speeches and only engaged in hard physical labor. It's the best thing I've ever done. While moving 44,000 pounds of mulch and thirty tons of sand one wheelbarrow at a time several hundred yards and felling, cutting, splitting, chopping and stacking scores of hundred foot trees things really come into perspective. So one thing that's next for me is taking off six weeks next summer to do it all over again.
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Investors.com ... (presents "Follow Leaders' Integrity")
Featuring information from Jason Jennings latest book "Hit the Ground Running":
July 23, 2009
> Read article ONLINE
Follow Leaders' Integrity
BYLINE: Steve Watkins
LENGTH: 528 words
SECTION: Leaders & Success; IBD 10 SECRETS TO SUCCESS; Pg. A03
High achievers consistently make integrity and accountability vital parts of the way they operate. Here's how they use ethics:
• Make it a priority. Jason Jennings, author of "Hit the Ground Running," studied 10 CEOs who created the most economic value among America's 1,000 largest public firms over a seven-year period.
"The overriding thing was accountability and the ethics of an organization," said Jennings, a Tiburon, Calif.-based business speaker. "There's no question what set these CEOs apart. It's doing the right thing all the time."
• See the big picture. Marshall Larsen, CEO of Goodrich (GR), told Jennings he doesn't sleep well at night because he's responsible for millions of people. Goodrich makes airplane gear, so if a jet went down and his firm's part caused it, he would be responsible. "That's personal accountability," Jennings said.
• Stick to your guns. A superior officer in the Navy once asked Charles Larson to fake training records. He refused, and the officer backed off, Charles Garcia writes in "Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows." Such integrity helped launched Larson toward the rank of admiral and to superintendent of the Naval Academy.
• Watch the small stuff. Larson could have fudged the numbers. Down the road, that could have led him to do the same on a bigger decision. "It's almost like a drug," Garcia said. "It's probably a gateway to something bigger."
• Watch your reflection. Companies look like their leaders. When the leader is distant and arrogant, often so is the firm. When the leader is ethical, the company is too, Jennings says. "You can tell the moment you walk in the door and meet people if a company has a lack of hidden agendas," he said.
• Be transparent. Jelly company J.M. Smucker (SJM) shows its strategy to each employee. It also makes it available to shareholders and vendors. If people are going to do their part, they must know the company's strategy, say co-CEOs Tim and Richard Smucker. Many weaker firms keep strategy a secret. "You certainly can't have accountability with a secret strategy," Jennings said.
• Take it or leave it. Jane Cahill Pfeiffer, a White House fellow in the 1960s, became chairman of NBC in the late 1970s. She quickly learned that the feds were investigating an expense account scandal there. Against internal pressure, she brought in outside auditors to get to the bottom of it. It worked, but higher-ups later fired her.
"If you're not willing to walk away from power, you have no power," said Garcia, managing director of merchant banking at Chicago's Cabrera Capital Markets, which raises money for Hispanic businesses.
• Follow the E's. Educate, create the right environment and enforce the rules, Garcia says. That worked when he headed the Honor Committee at the Air Force Academy. He got officials to stop locking dorm-room doors to prevent theft, and he stopped the practice of changing tests to avoid cheating. The honor code covers those things, he says.
• Encourage honesty. Larsen tells those around him to voice their opinion if they disagree with him. If they didn't, he told Jennings, one day they would "march off the side of the cliff like lemmings."
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Jason is published in largest circulated Indian business daily - The Economic Times
"A Fish out of Water"
June 2009
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Thursday Nights Executive Salon
Thursday, May 7, 2009
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Thursday Nights Executive Salon in Los Angeles with Jason Jennings, NYTimes bestselling author presenting his latest book, "Hit the Ground Running"
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| CEOs and executives from the following companies were present: |
5Square
Accruent
Adconion, Inc.
Agility Studios, LLC
AlwaysOn
Baroda Ventures
BDX Media
Big Stage Entertainment
Blade Ventures
Campus Explorer
Core Objects
Cresa Partners
Crosscut Ventures
Cynvenio Biosystems LLC
Delight Networks
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DLA Piper
Docstoc
Dohring
Eventful, Inc.
FlipGloss Media
Gamefly, Inc.
GetBack Media
GREYCROFT PARTNERS
GRP Partners
Independent Comedy Network
Jim Jonassen & Associates
LATV Networks
Middleshift LLC
Miramar Venture Partners
Mission Ventures
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Mobile Satellite Ventures
Mota Motors
NextMedium
Perfect Market, Inc.
Rotohog
Rustic Canyon Ventures
Shelter Capital Partners
ShoutFactory
Sometrics
The Tornante Company, LLC
Total Beauty Media Inc.
TriNet
Vantage Media
Vicente Capital Partners
WetPaint.com
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Total Picture Radio
Monday, April 27, 2009
> Download Podcast MP3 file
Do You Have What it Takes to Hit the Ground Running?
You may not be applying for the job of CEO, but if you want a job in this economy you should model your actions from CEO's that hit the ground running
Welcome to a leadership channel podcast on Total Picture Radio with Peter Clayton reporting. Joining us today from San Francisco is Jason Jennings, whose latest book Hit the Ground Running, a Manual for new Leaders, was just published by Portfolio. The book profiles and reveals the tactics and strategies of the American CEO's who've created the greatest amount of economic value since the year 2000. Companies and CEO's profiled include: JM Smucker, Harris Corporation, Mohawk Industries, Humana, Goodrich, Hanover Insurance, Allegheny Technologies, Staples and Questar.
Jason and his research team spent nearly three years identifying the companies and interviewing their CEO's. Jason says that as they studied the CEO's and companies three things became obvious... :
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The Marketing Spot
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
> Visit "The Marketing Spot" Site
> Download MP3 file: Power to the Small Business #28 (for personal use only)
Hit the Ground Running: Jason Jennings' Rules for New Entrepreneurs
Episode #28 of Power to the Small Business podcast.
The Internet show about small business marketing.
Guests: Jason Jennings - Best-selling author of Hit the Ground Running: A Manual for New Leaders
Length: 26 minutes [Download MP3 file]
Congratulations! You're a new entrepreneur. Now what? Best-selling author Jason Jennings says you should get after it, Hit the Ground Running. In this episode of Power to the Small Business, Jason Jennings shares his rules for new entrepreneurs.
Hit the Ground Running Show Notes
Jason Jennings' Rules for New Entrepreneurs:
1. Make your value proposition incredibly simple.
- This is the business we're in.
- This is what we do.
- Here's who we bring value to.
- Here's how we positively impact lives.
- Here's how we monetize that.
- Here's how it's good for everybody.
If you cannot answer these questions within 60 seconds, Jason says 'You don't have a business model worth sneezing at.'
2. Everyone must know your strategy
- Employees don't know why they do what they're doing.
- They allow corners to be cut and illegal/unethical activities to be engaged.
- They offer no accountability.
3. Don't waste time studying the competition.
- Instead, study your customer.
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LEADING Blog (LeadershipNow.com)
April 21, 2009 Tuesday 3:09 AM EST
> Description and Reviews <http://www.leadershipnow.com/leadershop/9781591842477.html>
BYLINE: Michael McKinney
LENGTH: 889 words
How to Hit the Ground Running
Stakes are high. Whether you are just starting out, trying something new or just starting each day with the understanding that you need to be putting your best foot forward, you need to know how to get up to speed, make the right decisions, and produce the right results fast. You need to hit the ground running.
If you could sit and learn from some of America's best CEOs, you could discover the right steps to take to insure your success while avoiding many of the pitfalls that come from learning from ones own experience. In Hit the Ground Running <http://www.leadershipnow....9781591842477.html>, Jason Jennings has made that possible. He has selected ten CEOs that created more economic value for their companies than all of the other CEOs of Americas top one thousand companies during the study period. They made the decisions that allowed them to achieve great results on issues we can all relate to by adhering to, sometimes counter-intuitive principles. From interviews and observation, Jennings has compiled these principles into ten lessons from each of these CEOs that if applied, will help you to hit the ground running.
Rule 1: Don't Deceive Yourself - You Will Reap What You Sow
Let the Golden Rule guide every decision. Richard Smucker says, "In matters of style, swim with the current but in matters of principle, stand like a rock."
Rule 2: Gain Belief
Leaders gain belief by being authentic and humble, getting rid of regal trappings, proving their worthiness, asking others for belief, and surrounding themselves with others who are also trusted. "I need everyone to respect and support one another and work with each other. Everything else is B.S." says Fred Eppinger of the Hanover Group.
Rule 3: Ask for Help
Howard Lance CEO of Harris Corporation (NYSE:HRS) "has a keen sense of humor and doesnt have a problem generating a laugh even at his own expense." He says, "Sometimes you have to take the veneer and let people see you for who you really are and share a chuckle or two. To "hit the ground running" requires that you admit that you dont have all the answers and engaged the assistance of others when assuming new duties."
Rule 4: Find, Keep, and Grow the Right People
Ronald Sargent's strategy at Staples is to promote from within, move people around, identify rising stars, make everyone an owner, communicate with your workers and make diversity your priority. Promoting from within "creates a career culture that encourages people to stay longer and stretch their skills".
Rule 5: See Through the Fog
Pat Hassey, CEO of Allegheny Technologies (NYSE:ATI) told Jennings, "Its the job of the CEO to see through the fog and to be a destination expert. People want to know where the company is headed, what their future holds, the opportunities that exist for them, and what their role is going to be. And they dont want to wait forever to find those things out." (See page 97 for Hasseys well thought out Team Rules that all team members have to agree to part of a Hassey-led team.)
Rule 6: Drive a Stake in the Ground
Jennings writes, "Driving stakes into the ground allows a leader to provide a clear vision about what the company is, where its headed, and how its going to get there so it can hit the ground running. But it isnt for the faint of heart. Once you've driven a stake in the ground you have to talk about it and promote it relentlessly."
Mike McCallister, CEO of Humana (NYSE:HUM) says, "The problem with most businesses is that instead of driving a stake in the ground, they stick a toe in the water and when it gets hard or boring they start thinking about it too much, begin questioning their decision and pull their toe out, changing things, and starting all over again."
Rule 7: Simplify Everything
"Oversimplify everything! Sit down and ask, If I could start with a blank sheet of paper today and create the best answer, what would I do?'" says Jeff Lorberbaum, CEO of Mohawk Industries. (NYSE:MHK)
Rule 8: Be Accountable
Setting a personal example of accountability is where many leaders fall short, writes Jennings. Instead of starting by being accountable themselves, they use the threat of accountability as a tool to drive others.
Rule 9: Cultivate a Fierce Sense of Urgency
Keith Rattie, CEO of Questar (NYSE:STR) says, "You must have a 'sense of urgency'. If one doesnt exist, the CEO's job is to create one. The mind-set needs to be - We're not as good as we know we have to be." Rattie adds that it will be time for him to leave when he loses the 'sense of urgency' and the belief that we have to be better tomorrow than we are today| it'll be time to get somebody else in the chair who will bring a new pair of eyes and fresh thinking to the job.
Rule 10: Be a Fish Out of Water
The CEO's interviewed don't fit the typical picture of what a CEO should be. They have been described as "humble, authentic, accessible, highly ethical, compassionate listeners and truly, believable" - committed to doing the right thing for all stakeholders.
Jennings skillfully weaves the thoughts from these business leaders into coherent and practical lessons. You will find all kinds of great advice in this book, much of it delivered in an almost off-the-cuff manner that belies its value. But it makes this insightful and crisply written book great reading.
Newstex ID: LEAD-0001-34282115
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Business Week magazine
Review by "Business Week" magazine
SECTION: TOP NEWS
LENGTH: 731 words
HEADLINE: CEOs Who Create Bang for the Bucks; Author Jason Jennings studied how a new generation of chief executives performs vs. compensation, then chose 10 who give the best value
Jason Jennings is here to tell the world that CEOs don't really get paid all that much. Well, some CEOs, that is. In his new book, Hit the Ground Running: A Manual for New Leaders [Portfolio, 2009], Jenning shares the results of his quest to find leaders who have created disproportionately high shareholder value in relation to the amount of compensation they receive.
"I believe share price is the best barometer of how a company is doing," says Jennings, who co-wrote The New York Times best-seller It's Not the Big That Eat the Small -- It's the Fast That Eat the Slow [Collins Business, 2002]. "Our compensation system should be based on the value you create."
After studying the performance of 3,600 new chief executives, Jennings chose the 10 who gave the most bang for their companies' bucks and included them in his book. Among them are Patrick Hassey of Allegheny Technologies; Marshall Larsen of BFGoodrich; Frederick Eppinger Jr. of the Hanover Group (THG); Ronald Sargent of Staples (SPLS); and Tim and Richard Smucker, who share the CEO position at J.M. Smucker.
Jennings recently spoke with BusinessWeek's Rebecca Reisner and shared his thoughts and discoveriesregarding CEO compensation. Edited excerpts of their conversation follow.
You chose to write only about "new" CEOs, those who took office after 2000. Why?
I wasn't interested in stories from the last century. I don't have time for dinosaurs. I believe the world changed in 2001 with the passage of Sarbanes-Oxley, which was a result of the dot-com crash. Before SOX, it was hard to evaluate one company's worth compared to others'. Some of the numbers corporations used were just fairy tales. Now you can accurately determine CEO performance compared to stock performance.
How can you be sure these CEOs can take credit for rising share prices? Market conditions could play a big role.
A rising tide does tend to lift all boats, true. From 2000 to 2008 some bad companies probably had stock that expanded. But you have to look at the companies these 10 CEOs inherited. Hanover Group could have been shuttered by the time Fred Eppinger took over. He saved the company 3,000 to 4,000 jobs. Staples had its lowest share price ever when Ronald Sargent became CEO. These CEOs turned things around.
What kind of compensation are the 10 chosen CEOs receiving?
Most were around $3 million to $4 million. The high was Ron Sargent at Staples with $30 million.
How can these figures be considered low, especially when you compare them to the five-figure salaries most workers receive?
Easy. If you go into a store like Staples or Sam Goody, the average worker will generate around $250,000 in sales per year. It costs the company about 30% [$75,000] of that to employ the worker when you figure in annual salary, insurance, and other benefits and costs. Now when Ron Sargent took the CEO spot at Staples, he expanded revenue from $10 billion a year to $30 billion. So if he gets compensation of $30 million a year, that's only one tenth of 1% of the revenue he helps bring in for the company. Remember, Ron is the steward for everyone associated with Staples stores -- the shareholders, the salespeople, the managers, the customers. Meanwhile, if we used that one tenth of 1% formula for the sales associates who generate $250,000 in sales a year, their compensation would be $250 a year.
Are there any commonalities in the way the compensation committees at the 10 companies determined how much they would pay their CEOs?
Yes. They all consider long-term value as part of the basis for CEO pay. They'll look at what the CEO has done in the last three years and what its value is before arriving at a compensation figure.
Were you particularly surprised about any of these CEOs' compensation?
Tim and Richard Smucker. These jellies and jams have been around for 100 years -- it's a publicly traded company, though most of the stock is family owned -- but they just became the CEOs. They upped sales from $500 million a year to $5 billion over the last eight years. Yet they receive modest salaries, about $3 million each. These are humble men who are not just in their jobs for the money.
Did any of the CEOs surprise you?
Ron Sargent is a tough guy, but he cried during our interview. He said, "We have 85,000 employees. Do you know how many houses we need to buy? How many kids we need to get through college? And that's my responsibility."
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bNet.com / (Business Book Briefs)
> Visit "bNet.com" Site
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(VIEW Video on the Site)
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| "Hit the Ground Running" by Jason Jennings | Book Brief
Business expert and author Jason Jennings interviewed the country's top ten performing CEOs for his book, "Hit the Ground Running". He explains how Smuckers' CEOs Tim and Richard Smucker reap what they sow by always treating customers the way they would want to be treated;
• how Staples' CEO Ron Sargent finds, keeps, and grows the right people
• and how Humana's CEO Mike McCallister drove his stake in the ground and wound up changing the face of an industry.
Jennings asserts that the ten "golden rules" these and other unconventional leaders follow ...
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The SpeakersGroup.com
> Visit "The Speakers Group" Site
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(VIEW Video on the Site)
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| (Abstract from Site-Article provided below) |
| Jason Jennings: Authour of "Hit the Ground Running", In-Demand Business Speaker
We had the privilege of sitting down for coffee with Jason Jennings today - the day his new book, Hit the Ground Running, landed on bookshelves.
While Jasonís previous New York Times Bestsellers - Think Big, Act Small and Less Is More - have focused on top-performing companies, Hit the Ground Running looks at the 10 best performing CEOs from 2001-2007.
Learn more about the CEOs he profiles and the lessons learned in this video:
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