Supreme Leadership"
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
Praise for "Supreme Leadership" Supreme read! You may not recognize these CEOs’ names, but the lessons they share resonate loud and deep. – Ludovic Beaufils | Vice President Product Marketing, Whirlpool I have always believed it is always about people. This book tells you how and why. – Neville Isdell | ex-Chairman & CEO, the Coca-Cola Company and ex-board member, General Motors A great book to teach you, or remind you, of some of the most important ideas that form the foundation of business and life success. – John Spence | one of the Top 100 business thought leaders in America This book is a must read for anyone who is or wants to be a true leader. It’s new, fresh and the stories are supreme. Supreme Leadership will change you and the people you surround yourself with if you read it and use the very practical examples. This book will show you how to go from great to supreme. – Robert Shemin | New York Times bestselling author * * * This is the definitive leadership playbook. Follow the advice inside here and you'll learn what it takes be a leader worth following. – Paul Sohn | bestselling author of Quarter-Life Calling, leadership coach and speaker A powerful, practical guide that shows you how to make it to your company’s 25th anniversary… from people who’ve done that and more. – David Burkus | associate professor of leadership and innovation, Oral Roberts University; author of Under New Management Nothing beats experience, especially in leadership. If you want direct knowledge from leaders who have faced what you will, Alinka Rutkowska brings you unfiltered, honest accounts directly from leaders who have been there. – Joshua Spodek | Author of Leadership Step by Step Now more than ever, the world needs strong, authentic, caring and committed leaders. The wisdom in these pages from such leaders is highly valuable and well worth the read. – Christine Kloser | Bestselling and award-winning author of The Freedom Formula and founder of the Transformational Author Experience SUPREME LEADERSHIP Gain 850 Years of Wisdom from Successful Business Leaders Alinka Rutkowska Copyright © 2018 Alinka Rutkowska All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Leaders Press. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information storage and retrieval system - except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper - without permission in writing from the publisher. 1. Leadership. 2. Business communication. I Rutkowska, Alinka. II. Title. ISBN 978-1-943386-21-5 (pbk) ISBN 978-1-943386-22-2 (ebook) Library of Congress Control Number: 2017918269 To Dad, who taught me to mind my own business, and to Mom, who always believed in me Are you a leader without a book? Nothing increases your authority and visibility as powerfully as a book. Discover how you can quickly and painlessly leave your legacy. Download your free copy of Bestseller Creation Secrets for Leaders at www.leaderspress.com now! Download it for free at www.leaderspress.com CONTENTS You 1 PART 1: PASSION 3 Tony White, enChoice 5 Eric Wenning, Wenning Entertainment 13 Wayne Reuvers, LiveTechnology 18 Mark Schena, Arrayit 30 PART 2: VISION 34 Guy Akasaki, Commercial Roofing & Waterproofing 36 Donald Pell, Donald Pell Gardens 48 Shanin Specter, Kline and Specter 52 PART 3: PERSISTENCE 59 Bob Ferris, VirTra 61 Justin Tysdal, Seven Corners 66 Ron Peri, Radixx International 74 Scott Fairley, CheckPoint Pumps and Systems 87 PART 4: ADAPTABILITY 100 Phil Wexler, The Fotoboyz 103 Adrian Velasquez, FiMed Management 109 Jeremy Enck, Fortus Groups 117 Arun Gollapudi, Systech Solutions, Inc. 122 David Susi, RSI Roofing & Solar 129 Manoj Nigam, MicroD 137 PART 5: CUSTOMER CENTEREDNESS 144 Gus Avalos, Soccer and Rugby Imports 147 Mark Nureddine, Bull Outdoor Products 151 Kevin Pludeman, Cornerstone Systems, Inc. 156 Eileen Libutti, Lewis Johs Avallone Aviles 160 Steven Pivnik, Binary Tree 168 Rupesh Patel, Zenique Hotels 176 Galen Quenzer, Boys & Girls Clubs of the Sequoias 189 Laurie Adams, Women for Women International 196 PART 6: RELATIONSHIPS 203 Scott Joffe, Roufusport 205 Matt Frew, ShipZOOM 216 Steven Lowy, IKP Law 219 Lori DeVito, AET Environmental 224 Marc Butler, Albridge 229 Chad Miller, LockNet 233 Steve Olsher, Liquor.com 243 Ali Razi, Banc Certified Merchant Services 249 David Fuess, Catapult Systems 256 Your Team 265 Acknowledgements 266 About the Author 267 Are you a leader without a book? 269 You You are a leader. And a smart one at that. How do I know? First clue: you picked up a book. Second clue: you picked up a book entitled Supreme Leadership. You already know that books can change lives. The goal of this one is to make you a more effective leader. How do you do that? You read on. When you do, you’ll gain 850 years of wisdom from successful business leaders. How is that possible? Easy. To be able to deliver more than half a millennium of leadership insights I interviewed 34 CEOs who are celebrating their company’s 25th anniversary the year of this book’s publication. 34 times 25 equals…850. After the first 15 interviews, I noticed a trend. What allowed these leaders to succeed was their focus on one of these six leadership traits: passion, vision, adaptability, persistence, customer centeredness or relationships. You will see yourself in these stories more than once. Within the pages of this book, you’ll relive the mistakes these 1 Alinka Rutkowska leaders have made and learn from them, so that you don’t need to experience them yourself. You’ll discover the secrets to running a thriving 25-year company. You’ll see laws of leadership that real people employed to achieve real results. By the time you finish reading this book, you should be able to emulate featured leaders’ strategies to lead your own company to its 25th anniversary. But first, before you even get started, you need passion… 2 PART 1: PASSION There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you. -Richard Branson One of the best-known entrepreneurs who swears that passion is the key to entrepreneurial success is Richard Branson. Although I would have loved to interview him for this book, this is, however, as we used to say in Whirlpool (where I used to work), “out of scope.” Sir Richard Branson started his mega-brand Virgin in 1970 when he was just 20 years old. After almost 50 years in entrepreneurship, his advice to budding entrepreneurs is to give their businesses a purpose and try to make a positive difference. Like most of the CEOs I feature, Branson maintains a people-conscious business model. By concentrating on purpose and difference, he maintains that a business that helps others will in turn give customers a reason to buy and other businesses a reason to work together. Branson recommends maintaining control over your business by securing funding through ways that do not give away equity. He recommends using crowdfunding or even traditional bank loans to raise needed capital. Having to perform for investor satisfaction will likely lead to problems 3 Alinka Rutkowska down the line, he claims. Branson advises retaining full ownership so business owners can avoid later problems. He said if he were to start all over today, this is the route he would take. Branson is well known for espousing the importance of passion in business, as well as advising that launching a business simply to make money can easily result in failure. When launching Virgin Money in 1995, he admits to not feeling passionate about the idea of banking, so he instead chose to focus on his penchant for good customer service. He channeled his passion into making banking accessible and understandable for people, rather than focusing on the banking aspect. For Branson and his crew, taking risks ignites their passions. Creating the world's first commercial spaceline, Virgin Galactic, is surely not without risks. To that Branson said, “Our commitment to taking risks excites and enthuses our staff, as well as our customers. We’ve seen many brands stagnate in recent years. By innovating in the sectors where we are currently operating and taking the risk of entering new markets, we think Virgin can avoid the same fate.” Over the course of the interviews I conducted it became clear that successful leaders need passion to win big and celebrate 25 years in business. Let’s take a closer look. 4 Tony White, enChoice If you don't start with passion, you're probably not going to make it. With offices across the United States and Europe, enChoice, Inc. is a multi-award-winning enterprise content management solutions company. Founded in 1993, this company helps customers improve business processes and protect critical information through software solutions and support to accelerate business efficiencies and competitiveness. When I asked Tony White, CEO of enChoice, to what he attributes his outstanding success, he said that without a doubt a business leader needs to have something to believe in and feel passionate about. “If you don't start with that strong belief that you have something that is needed and you're willing to go the extra mile to make it happen, you probably will not be successful on your own.” 25 years ago, Tony advocated the idea to go paperless. He felt the world was being flooded with paper and that it was time to solve what he saw as a huge problem by cutting down on the mounds of unnecessary paperwork.