Patrick Lencioni’s newest book, Getting Naked: A Business Fable About the Shedding the Three Fears That Sabotage Client Loyalty, lands on shelves this week. From Amazon.com:

Written in the same dynamic style as his previous bestsellers including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team, Lencioni illustrates the principles of inspiring client loyalty through a fascinating business fable. He explains the theory of vulnerability in depth and presents concrete steps for putting it to work in any organization. The story follows a small consulting firm, Lighthouse Partners, which often beats out big-name competitors for top clients. One such competitor buys out Lighthouse and learns important lessons about what it means to provide value to its clients.

Click through to read Amazon.com’s exclusive Q&A with Pat, where he answers questions such as “Why do you use the term naked and where does it come from?” (Hint: It’s not just to be catchy. Pat — through his speaking and consulting — helps CEOs and their teams build healthy organizations, and they found that by being completely transparent and vulnerable — “naked” — with clients, they could build amazing levels of trust and loyalty.)

Pat is one of our favorite speakers here at The Speakers Group, and we’re not alone — the Wall Street Journal has named him one of the most in-demand business speakers. If you’d like to learn more about bringing Pat to your next event, we’d be happy to speak with you. Just submit this form to tell us about your event, or click here to read more about Pat first.

Posted under Book Review, Leadership Development, Motivational Speakers, Organizational Excellence, Speaker News, Speaker Recommendations

We’ve done a lot of negotiating at The Speakers Group this year. Wait, for speakers? I thought speakers weren’t supposed to negotiate. Something about fee integrity… Yes, speakers negotiate. The secret’s out.

With meeting budgets slashed, speakers, speakers bureaus and other vendors in the meetings industry have had to adapt to meet clients’ needs. And that’s what we’re here for, right? To meet our clients’ needs? Yep, that’s what we do. Sometimes the negotiation involves money; sometimes it involves services. It always involves increasing value. Creating win-win engagements.

What has negotiation meant to you this year? To your organization? To your meeting attendees?

Negotiation happens. The worst thing you can do is ignore it. The best thing you can do is prepare for it. If you – and your people – need help, look no further than Ed Brodow, author of Negotiation Boot Camp: How To Resolve Conflict, Satisfy Customers, and Make Better Deals, and creator of the number-one customized negotiation skills training seminar in the United States.

Here’s a tip from Ed appearing in today’s Forbes.com article titled “Nine Things You Didn’t Know You Could Negotiate“:

“You can negotiate anything. It’s all about confidence and realizing that nothing is set in stone.”

When companies (such as Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, Seagate and many others) engage Ed to deliver his Negotiation Boot Camp seminar or a related keynote, sellers learn how to create satisfied customers at higher prices, buyers learn how to make better deals with vendors, and executives learn how to resolve conflict. The end result always looks something like this:

“Ed’s programs have received high marks from all our employees who have been participants (sixteen seminars). Everyone who talks to a customer and everyone who talks to a supplier needs to go to this one!” – Baker Hughes

Want to learn more about Ed Brodow and how he could contribute to your next meeting or conference? Contact us at The Speakers Group today and we’ll get you in touch with Ed to help you explore the possibilities.

Posted under Leadership Development, Organizational Excellence, Sales Management

Business today needs a new paradigm, because “business as usual” is just not working anymore. Environmental consciousness is exploding; public distrust of business is at an historic high; many employees and customers are disconnected from the companies they work for or buy from; suppliers feel squeezed; communities often organize to keep certain businesses out. The traditional approach to business is like an old operating system that is no longer adequate and needs to be replaced. It is becoming increasingly evident that the old operating system of capitalism is simply not up to the demands being placed upon it in the new millennium.

At the same time that its reputation is deteriorating, the reach and impact of business in the world is growing. Business today has greater power than ever before to enhance or to diminish overall well-being in society. As its power and influence grow, so too must its sense of responsibility and stewardship. (from ConsciousCapitalism.com)

Under that premise, a group of pioneering business leaders gathered at the Catalyzing Conscious Capitalism (C3) Summit in Austin, Texas, last week, seeking to deepen their understanding and practice of Conscious Business™. Here’s a highlight video:

At The Speakers Group, we’re honored to represent Jeff Klein, President of the Conscious Capitalism Alliance and author of the recently released book, Working for Good, who spoke at the event. Here’s a video introduction to Jeff:

If the Conscious Capitalism theme resonates with you and your organization and you would like to empower and mobilize your team toward “Working for Good,” consider Jeff’s Working for Good Engagement Experience for your next meeting or conference. We’d be happy to help you evaluate the program and how it could benefit your organization – just give us a call or send an email.

Posted under Innovation Speakers, Leadership Development, Motivational Speakers, Organizational Excellence, inspirational speakers

This little company in the video is ready to go global. They couldn’t do it alone, though. The manager knew he needed a great shipping partner like FedEx, and some extra motivation from one Mr. Dick Butkus.

What are your big plans for closing out 2009 or kicking off 2010? Is a great shipping partner your missing link? If so, maybe FedEx can help you, too. If your team would benefit from a motivational – and performance – boost, though, give us a call at The Speakers Group. We’ll help you find the right speaker to fit your needs – and your budget! (NOTE: Dick Butkus generally speaks to audiences larger than one.)

Posted under Leadership Development, Motivational Speakers, Organizational Excellence

Michael Moore’s newest movie, Capitalism: A Love Story – which opens in theaters nationwide today – spotlights what Moore calls “the disastrous impact of corporate dominance on the everyday lives of Americans.” Jeff Klein, author of Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living, offers a  contrasting, more hopeful perspective with his latest op-ed (written for the December 2009 issue of ICOSA Magazine – which the editors kindly allowed us to preview on our blog).

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Capitalism: A Love Story – The Missing Chapter

by Jeff Klein

True to form, in his new documentary Capitalism: A Love Story, director Michael Moore amplifies the lies, abuses, and manipulations underlying the recent and ongoing financial crisis. In some ways appropriately, Moore points accusing fingers at Wall Street titans and their well-placed allies in government. We can recognize and perhaps celebrate the role of connection and collaboration in facilitating the bail out of the finance, auto, and other related industries.

But there is a chapter missing from Michael Moore’s story, which reveals a very different conclusion and inspires optimism and engagement, rather than pessimism and despair. This new chapter in the story of Capitalism reflects a distinctly different kind of connection and collaboration.

While some capitalists work on Wall Street, and some of those Wall Street capitalists focus on money and their personal wealth at the exclusion of nearly other things, many other capitalists build and run companies that focus on creating value for more that just themselves. And many of the capitalists on Wall Street invest in companies for reasons beyond their own self-interest.

The missing chapter of the Love Story reveals a growing cadre of entrepreneurs, executives, and investors dedicated to practicing Conscious Capitalism – dedicated to creating conscious companies, which are purpose-driven and deliver great value to all of their stakeholders, including their customers, employees, investors, vendors, and the communities where they do business.

At its core, Capitalism is about voluntary association and collaboration, which is one of the reasons Capitalism works, why it won the battle with Socialism in the 20^th Century, and why it continues to persist and flourish, in spite of its flaws and manipulations by some of its practitioners. At its core, in a market-based economy, no one forces us in deciding what to buy or where to buy it, where to work and under what conditions, or where to invest and on what terms. For the marketplace to work, the participants need to be connected – through language, culture, proximity or technology – and to collaborate to facilitate transactions and value exchange. Without connection and collaboration, there is no marketplace or Capitalism. While to some extent the financial markets function in their own realm, their foundation rests on the companies, commodities, and other things that we value or that create value. No customers, no business. No business, no stock market.

While Capitalism is about much more than Wall Street, the ecosystem of Capitalism requires capital. Just as we require food and drink to survive, grow, and flourish, businesses need capital to fuel their growth and development, and often the rate of capital required outstrips a business’s ability to generate through its revenues. And a start up, like an infant, requires nourishment from the outside to feed its launch into life.

Thus investors are one important stakeholder in the ecosystem of a business, but not the only one. Conscious investors recognize that for their capital to have the greatest effect and to yield the best return – best including their considerations other than financial, such as healthy companies, communities, and environments, among other things – the business need to deliver value to the other stakeholders and they need to collaborate with management to ensure a healthy stakeholder system.

The marketplace is increasingly saying “yes!” to environmental sustainability, poverty alleviation, peace, and opportunity for all—and business is responding. Consumers, employees,

investors, and others expect businesses to participate in addressing social issues, and they look to business as a source of inspiration, meaning, and purpose as well as a platform for personal growth and societal evolution.

So, how does the marketplace reward conscious companies? In their ground-breaking book, Firms of Endearment: How World-Class Companies Profit from Passion and Purpose (Wharton School Publishing: 2007) authors Jag Seth, Raj Sisodia, and David Wolfe assess long-term and short-term stock performance of 30 companies who practice versions of conscious capitalism. The companies substantially outperform the S & P 500. The 100 Best Places to Work similarly outperform the market.

By having a clear, meaningful purpose, creating value for all stakeholders, explicitly and purposefully fostering collaboration within and between its stakeholder groups, companies and their leaders they cultivate vigorous ecosystems with great energy and information flow. In the process, conscious capitalists will create healthy, sustainable, purpose-driven companies based on strong, resilient relationships with engaged stakeholders. As a result of an increasing number of conscious companies, we will advance the evolution of the marketplace as a tool to facilitate human interaction and development and a more Conscious Capitalism will emerge.

While Michael Moore may want the Love Story to end, there are new suitors entering the story, and their offerings are not only appealing, they are delicious, nutritious, and sustainable. If Capitalism is dead or dying, it is only to be reborn. From the compost of Greed-based Capitalism (which has never been the only face of Capitalism), Conscious Capitalism is sprouting. Let’s all play a role – as consumers, employees, entrepreneurs, leaders, investors, communities, citizens – in celebrating and tending its growth and development.

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Jeff Klein is CEO of Cause Alliance Marketing, President of the Conscious Capitalism Alliance, and author of Working for Good: Making a Difference While Making a Living.

To learn more about Working for Good and download the free e-book, 26 Principles of Working for Good, visit www.workingforgood.com.

To learn more about scheduling Jeff Klein to deliver the “Working for Good Engagement Experience” at your next meeting or conference, visit www.thespeakersgroup.com/Jeff_Klein.

Posted under In the Spotlight, Leadership Development, Motivational Speakers, Organizational Excellence