This month, the business world lost two giants: Bob Galvin (former CEO of Motorola) and Steve Jobs (co-founder and recently retired CEO of Apple).  Both were highly successful businessmen; both founded and/or led high performing organizations; both literally created one (or more) industries; and both left legacies that will sustain for quite awhile.  One (Jobs) was highly visible if not somewhat immortalized; the other (Galvin) was a quieter giant – his obituary didn’t even hit the front business page in many US newspapers – but without his contributions, there may not be iPhones today.  One single-handedly created the cell phone industry (that was Galvin); one single-handedly revolutionized that industry by creating smarter-phones, “pod” and “pad” technology, the digital music industry, and a new way of watching animated movies (Pixar).  Both of them left us with dozens of best practices and many insights for advancing organizational excellence.  I’ll give you eight…

• Sell the benefits of your product or service, not just its features and attributes.  Think about the ads that Apple has run the last few years.  Yes, they show the products themselves, but more importantly, they also capture emotions and show the benefits that come from the using the products.  The commercials show people playing games and having fun, dancing in the streets while listening to music, kids reading and learning from educational applications.  They show customers doing simple daily tasks (like checking in for a flight or booking a reservation at a restaurant for that evening) – only completing the tasks with more ease by using Apple products.  They create a FEELING not just from the products themselves, but by what the products can enable people to do.
• Know what customers want before they do.  Both Motorola in the 80s and Apple more recently have developed a keen sense of what the market needs, even before customers could articulate those needs.  I guess you could say that both companies have had premonitions of the “voice of the customer!”  People didn’t know that they needed cell phones before Galvin’s company created them; customers didn’t know that they needed a place to store music digitally instead of on the hundreds of CDs we all owned, but Jobs did; customers didn’t know they needed smart devices that can do 500,000 things (that’s how many applications are currently in the Apple AppStore), but Jobs envisioned a way to integrate the phone with personal computing, with music and video, with GPS and the Internet, and with personal applications that can do specialized and helpful things.  Galvin and Jobs had visions of these solutions before customers did, finding ways to solve problems that customers didn’t even know they had.  Stated by Jobs in a 1998 Business Week interview: “It’s really hard to design products by focus groups.  A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
• Make things simple.  This was a quote from Jobs in that same Business Week article: “Simple can be harder than complex: you have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.  But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains.”  Think about how everything at Apple is simple – from product design itself (the simple curves and first-of-its-kind keyless technology of the iPhone and iPad), the simple website (Apple’s site is white, clean, and uncluttered), the simple advertising (“If you don’t have an iPhone, well, you don’t have an iPhone.”).  In today’s complex, fast-paced world, less is oftentimes more.
• Take risks and never be satisfied with status quo.  Galvin once said: “One of our main thrusts was that our company was always going to be preparing for the next adventure – the next thing.  I [Galvin] was always asking the question, ‘What’s the next thing we could be adding, multiplying; what would be good for our future lineup of products?’”  Galvin knew that not all products would be successful, but he demanded at Motorola that employees always try to find the next big thing.  He insisted on a strong R&D function, and he launched Motorola Labs, a leading contributor to cellular, digital and semiconductor technologies.
• Be creative and innovate.  Both Galvin and Jobs were highly innovative: they solved problems by applying proven technologies in new applications.  Steve Wozniak, who co-founded Apple with Jobs in a garage in 1976, said Jobs “had the ability to think out new ways of doing things…to do it in a totally different way that the world would swing toward.”  Part of Jobs’ genius was in finding new ways to use existing technologies.  According to Jobs in a 1996 interview in Wired: “Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something…”  He goes onto say that “Picasso had a saying: ‘Good artists copy; great artists steal.’  We have always been shameless about stealing great ideas…”  Galvin had a similar philosophy about innovation and change.  He said “the absolutely distinguishing quality of a leader is that a leader takes us elsewhere.”  That’s visionary leadership.
• Strive for perfection.  When you think of Six Sigma, you may think of Jack Welch, former CEO of GE.  But it was Bob Galvin who first launched Six Sigma nearly a decade earlier in Motorola: January 1987.  Building off the work of two Motorola employees (Mikel Harry and Bob Smith), Galvin promoted the quality movement at Motorola, where his goal was “six nines” manufacturing quality – 99.9999% accuracy.  Motorola went on to receive the prestigious Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award in 1988, partially because of their superior product quality.  Steve Jobs, too, demanded perfection.  iPhones just don’t crash (well, not frequently).  And it’s Apple’s reputation for nearly flawless manufacturing, along with its sophisticated engineering, that allows it to make premium pricing look like a value purchase.  While much of Apple’s and Motorola’s success can be attributed to innovation, a great deal of credit has to also go to its high quality production.
• Build an environment for employees to succeed and for the organization to achieve high performance.  “The most important thing that Bob [Galvin] did was create an environment that gave people the freedom and stimulus to do great things,” says Martin Cooper in Quality Digest, former Motorola vice president and division manager, who during the 1970s led the team that developed the handheld mobile phone. “He also set the tone from the top—no compromise on ethics—and emphasized objectivity in decision making by taking the personal issues out of the discussion and deciding based on doing what was right. His skills were not technological, but no one could pick and motivate people better than he could. He also made sure everyone in the company has the same tools and incentives to excel.”  Galvin was so tuned into the needs of his employees that he created Motorola University, an in-house training and development center that still stands today, some 25 years later. 
• Be passionate about what you do.  Both Galvin and Jobs were driven.  They both had a vision for not only what was possible, but for what would change the world.  Even after Job’s illness in 2004, he kept driving the company forward because he believed what he was doing was important work.  According to Jobs in the Wall Street Journal: “Being the richest man in the cemetery doesn’t matter to me. …Going to bed at night saying we’ve done something wonderful…that’s what matters to me.”

Those eight tips could help us all improve our careers, our leadership effectiveness, and our organizations’ performance.  But I’ll add a ninth that may have less to do with business than it does with life itself.  Jobs, in a very powerful commencement address at Stanford University in 2005 (a year after he was diagnosed with cancer) said:

“No one wants to die.  Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there.  And yet death is the destination we all share.  No one has ever escaped it.  And that is as it should be because death is very likely the single best invention of life.  It is life’s change agent.  It clears out the old to make way for the new. …Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life.  Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking.  Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice.” 

In other words, be your own person.  Live life to its fullest and be true to yourself.  If you live life with passion, with purpose, with creativity…if you take risks and continue to learn…if you maintain ethics and respect people, you’ll not only be successful in your life and in your career, but you may just leave a legacy.  Thanks for your contributions, Bob Galvin and Steve Jobs.

Want to participate in a discussion on this topic??  Visit our new blog to post a comment!

Yours in Improvement,

Brian S. Lassiter

President, Minnesota Council for Quality

Does your organization use people to accomplish its work?
Does your organization use people to manage people to accomplish its work?

If so (and we know the answers are "yes!"), you and others in your organization will benefit from our November 10-11 conference on leadership and employee engagement -- our second biggest event of the year!

Research shows that the number one predictor of organizational excellence is effective leadership.  Research also shows that having fully engaged, competent, motivated, and empowered employees is necessary to achieve and sustain high performance.  But ensuring effective leadership and achieving a fully engaged workforce is challenging, especially during tough times.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to announce a special two-day conference this fall: “Best Practices in Leadership Effectiveness & Employee Engagement.”  The main conference will be Thursday, November 10, with post-conference workshops on Friday, November 11.  High performing organizations such as US Bank, Toro, Allina Hospitals & Clinics, Olmsted County, Benedictine Health System, AMSOIL, Plunkett’s Pest Control, and others have agreed to share best practices in succession planning, communication, servant leadership, measuring and increasing employee engagement, and many other relevant topics.

Exhibitors from leadership/employee engagement experts will also be available Nov 10, as well as some unique special facilitated networking/sharing sessions, which will help attendees absorb content, share best practices amongst themselves, and meet/build relationships with other leaders and professionals interested in performance excellence.

For more information, including an agenda and cost information, visit http://www.councilforquality.com/specialevent2.cfm.

Time is running out!  Come join us for two extraordinary workshops:

Oct 25: Achieving 8 Dimensions of Excellence: Aligning Strategy and Measures with Customer Priorities, and

Oct 26: Mind & Voice of the Customer: Uncover, Translate, Measure & Deliver What Customers Want

Both are full-day workshops. Both are presented by Robin Lawton, President, International Management Technologies, Inc. (www.imtC3.com), and both are hosted by Prime Therapeutics in Bloomington.  Both have sold out in the past, with attendee satisfaction approaching 100%. Don't miss these extremely valuable, highly engaging workshops!!

Oct 25: Achieving 8 Dimensions of Excellence

Change leaders like you have high expectations, a vision of the possible and urgency to engage others. Join this stimulating and entertaining session for a pragmatic approach that will strengthen your ability to achieve strategic outcomes customers will notice and employees will enthusiastically deploy. Your top-rated speaker and author, Robin Lawton, provides a thought-leading model and new tools for an eminently practical way to:

• Describe customer priorities along four main dimensions
• Concretely connect them to enterprise mission and strategy
• Balance eight (8) areas of performance and related measures
• Integrate & leverage existing initiatives (Baldrige, GPRA, Lean/Six Sigma, HCAHPS, VoC, etc.)

Tools you'll take away include:

• A self-assessment that reveals excellence strengths/needs in four key areas of leadership
• The easy-to-apply framework, showing your current initiative(s) focus and how to leverage
• Two tools that remove ambiguity about what "service" means and who "the customer" is
• Deployment criteria proven to increase satisfaction & workforce capacity while simultaneously making huge cost and time savings
• The method for connecting strategy to daily work, applicable to everyone

Oct 26: Mind & Voice of the Customer

Challenging times are ripe with opportunity, making this session more important than ever. Its unique tools and methods will help you understand, keep and satisfy customers. And your efforts to apply ISO requirements, Six Sigma projects, Baldrige Criteria, HCAHPS and satisfaction surveys will be significantly enhanced. You will find this material is particularly relevant for your service and knowledge work, not just for the widget business.

This session shows how easy it is to confuse what you heard with what they said (not to mention what they want but didn't say). Mistaking the literal voice of the customer with the untapped mind of the customer is tragically common.  Tools such as surveys, quality function deployment (QFD), the Kano model, ISO 9000, Six Sigma and others have been increasingly used to capture the voice of the customer (VOC). While they have all made contributions, NONE answer key questions every practitioner must answer. Naturally, this workshop provides those answers.

Pricing for both workshops is based on member/non-member status, early bird, and size of team registering. For more information or to register, visit http://www.imtc3.com/events/UpcomingEvents.cfm.

Times are tough for all Minnesota organizations, which is why the Council’s mission of advancing continuous improvement and performance excellence throughout the State is more relevant than ever.  Our work supports schools, healthcare organizations, non-profits, and businesses.  Through a volunteer network of more than 140 leaders and professionals, we help make good Minnesota organizations better, making this a more productive, more competitive, more livable state.

Council stakeholders have a unique opportunity to support the Council’s mission on Wednesday, November 16, as part of the State-wide “Give to the Max Day.”  Through www.GiveMN.org, your online contributions will be partially matched by several foundations, including Bremer Foundation, Bigelow Foundation, Minnesota Community Foundation, St. Paul Foundation, and United Way Greater Twin Cities.

Matching begins at 8AM CT on Wednesday, November 16 and runs for 24 hours until 8AM Thursday, November 17.  Just follow this easy process: 

• Go to http://givemn.razoo.com/story/Minnesota-Council-For-Quality
• Click on the green Donate button at the right of the screen.
• Enter the desired donation amount and information, and click on the green “Donate Now” button at the bottom of the page. 

It’s that simple. 

You can become a member by donating an appropriate amount (member benefits at http://www.councilforquality.org/member_benefits.cfm).  You can renew your (or your organization’s) membership for another year.  Or you can just support our mission with a one-time donation.

The Council works with over 300 members representing more than 150,000 employees and citizens of Minnesota.  We help leaders identify strengths and improvement opportunities and build networks that bring information, resources, knowledge, and best practices to organizations desiring to improve.

Please consider this opportunity to make a gift to the Minnesota Council for Quality by contributing between 8AM Wednesday morning November 16 and 8AM Thursday morning November 17.  Thank you for your support.

In business today, the pressures to achieve breakthrough results are greater than ever. Innovation is now critical to sustained success. This is true for organizations and it’s true for each of us as individuals and as leaders. Yet many of us have received little guidance in developing this crucial skill set, in ourselves and in others.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to offer a special one-day workshop on Tuesday, December 6: "Innovation Critical: A One Day Master Workshop on Leading Innovation and Being an Innovator." The workshop will be facilitated by Dennis Stauffer, Chief Insight Officer, Insight Fusion LLC.

This personalized and interactive session is about identifying, developing and promoting the critical behaviors and mindset that enable us to innovate. You’ll learn to recognize powerful patterns that impact your organization’s capacity to innovate, and discover how you can shape those patterns by the way you think, behave and lead.

As part of this session, you’ll receive specific personalized feedback with a new research-based self-assessment—feedback you can use to develop your own Innovator Mindset. It’s like having a diagnostic utility for your personal operating system. As with a computer, this operating system functions in the background out of sight, yet it impacts how well someone’s personal “programs” perform. A clear understanding of a computer’s operating system is essential to keeping it running at optimum performance…and so it is with people.

A Personal Brand is a promise you make to yourself and to others. Driven by five distinct aspects of self-identity, your personal brand sets expectations, and -- more than that -- it manages expectations. When your team members each develop and articulate their personal brand, the endeavor builds appreciation for diversity, triggers motivation, and inspires cohesion.

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Sharon Hanson, Associate Executive Director at Advance IT Minnesota, Metro State University, to our November 3 PIN: "Building a Personal Brand for Yourself, Your Team, Your Unit."

Sharon will help you discover five aspects of personal brand and the six accompanying obligations that lead to increased accountability and team effectiveness. She will also facilitate a process by which you will actually create an initial personal brand statement and tagline. And you will begin to determine the broader application of branding for yourselves and your teams or departments. Because beyond the individuals, developing a “total team” brand identity positions your unit, drives collaboration and refines its focus and purpose.

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on Nov 3 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at Minneapolis Community & Technical College, 1501 Hennepin Ave, downtown Minneapolis.

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Many of us have studied and learned through the teachings of the “quality gurus” -- renowned individuals such as Dr. W. Edwards Deming, Dr. Joseph Juran, Dr. Walter Shewhart, Phil Crosby, and others. Additionally, many of us also have discovered application knowledge through the writings and publications of respected scholars and consultants, such as Jim Collins, Clay Christensen, Robert Kaplan and David Norton as well as others. So how do the two meet -- the brilliant theory of gurus and the practical application of modern day experts?

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Gary Floss, Director of Quality Assurance and Continual Improvement, Marvin Windows & Doors, to our November 9 PIN: "Strategic Quality Management: Using Baldrige to Sustain the Teachings of Gurus."

Gary will outline the value organizations are finding in the validated Baldrige framework (as a system for performance improvement rather than an award process) and point to how core concepts of strategic quality management are integrated within this seminal framework. Gary will share how Baldrige serves as the overarching umbrella to integrate the teaching of the gurus and the practical interpretation of current day scholars and consultants in order to produce desired results. These concepts are embedded in a graduate course that Gary, and his long-time colleague, Dr. John Fechter, have taught at the University of St. Thomas School of Engineering for 12 years.

We thank our sponsors, American Society for Quality (ASQ Section 1203) and Metropolitan State University, for their support of this session, helping us to keep it complimentary for members.

The discussion is from 8:00-9:00 a.m. on Nov 9 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:30 a.m.) at Metro State University, 700 E 7th Street, downtown St. Paul.

Admission to PIN is FREE for Council members; $15 for partner organizations; $30 for the public.

Rochester, MN is known for its world class healthcare at Mayo Clinic and work class innovation at IBM. Did you know that Rochester also has world class leaders that span the many industries and employers in our area?

The Rochester Area Quality Council, an affiliate of the Minnesota Council for Quality, is pleased to welcome a panel of leaders to our November 1 program, "Local Leaders Lead the Way."

Integrity, creativity, vision, judgment, innovation, communication, knowledge, honesty, passion, and charisma…what does it take to be a good leader? Please join us at this interactive panel discussion as we hear from our local leaders. They will share with you their defining moments, their thoughts on handling ethical dilemmas, their views on respect, and their communication styles. You will also have the opportunity to engage the panel with your own questions and create an interactive dialogue on the journey to becoming a leader.

The session is Nov 1 from 8:00-9:30 AM RCTC.

Space is limited. Please register by contacting Jennifer Burmeister before Oct 28 at jennifer.burmeister@councilforquality.org or 507-213-8132.

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Also, Karl Shurson Annual Quality Award Nominations are now being accepted by the Rochester Area Quality Council. Are you aware of someone who models excellence, reinforces ethics, values and expectations with a future focus that supports the development and strengthens organizational performance excel­lence and demonstrates social responsibility in the building of a quality community? Nomination applications can be obtained by contacting Jennifer Burmeister at (507) 213-8132 or e-mailing jennifer.burmeister@councilforquality.org. Nominations are due to Jennifer on or before November 15, 2011 and the awards will be award at a special RAQC Monthly program on Tuesday, December 6, 2011.

Karl Shurson was a long-time executive at IBM Rochester and was an integral part of the team that won the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award for IBM Rochester in 1990. With Karl’s leadership, the Rochester Area Quality Council was formed shortly afterwards to leverage the strength and experience from IBM’s Baldrige work. Following a successful 32 year career at IBM, Karl was one of the founders and senior leaders for Pemstar, an electronics contract manufacturer.

Karl’s passion for quality and improvement was evident in all his conversations and work with employees, community members and nearly everyone he interacted. Karl emphasized the need for continual learning for all employees and saw the benefits of engaging all employees in personal and organizational improvement. In a statement about Karl’s passing, his friend and Pemstar co-founder, Al Berning, remarked, “He was very passionate about quality, customer satisfaction -- doing the right thing for the customer -- and education.”

In case you haven’t notice, we’ve been “enjoying” a prolonged period of economic turmoil for nearly three years.  What started with the mortgage and financial markets now permeates much of our economy, as countries – the US included – continue to struggle to add jobs and increase economic output.  But how did we get to this place?  What were the root causes that produced our economic crisis?  And how could quality principles have prevented (or, perhaps more appropriately, pulled us out of) this economic mess?

The Minnesota Council for Quality is pleased to welcome Kevin Wilson, President and CEO with Blue Water Capital Advisors, to our November 16 Twin Ports Performance Excellence Network.  Kevin will share his insights on what caused the challenges we see in today’s economy, what the future might hold, and how we might return to more normal times.  Not only will this discussion appeal to quality professionals, as Kevin delves into the cause and effect of today’s challenges, but it will also resonate with just about everyone as we figure out what our collective financial futures look like!

The session is from 7:30-8:30 a.m. on November 16 (networking and continental breakfast begin at 7:00 a.m.) at a location TBD.  Admission to TPPEN is FREE for Council members and guests ($20 for non-members).

The Association for Strategic Planning-Minnesota Chapter, an alliance partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce its next meeting: “Infinite Possibility: Exploring Future Value Creation.”  The session is facilitated by Kim Korn, founder of Create Advantage and author of the new book “Infinite Possibility.”

Infinite opportunities abound as digital technology redefines your enterprise’s competitive landscape.  The digital tsunami sweeping over businesses and organizations of all types radically changes their competitive landscape and means of creating value. Customer value creation challenges and opportunities abound like never before. Organizations that thrive in the years to come are embracing digital technology and pursuing the potential it holds for them.

Presenting key ideas from his recently published book, Kim Korn shows you how to make sense of creating new value for your customers with digital technology.  Though the virtual nature of digital technology offers limitless opportunities, real-world experiences have a richness that virtual ones do not.  So how can you use the best of both?  What kinds of experiences can you create?  Which ones should you offer?  See how to make sense of offerings that fuse the real and the virtual.

In Infinite Possibility, Kim and coauthor Joe Pine provide a profound new tool geared to exploring and exploiting the digital frontier.  They delineate eight different realms of experience encompassing various aspects of Reality and Virtuality and, using scores of examples, show how innovative companies operate within and across each realm to create extraordinary customer value.

The Minnesota Chapter of Project Management Institute (PMI), an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce its next breakfast session: “The Benefits and Pitfalls of Rescuing Other Project Managers.”  The session will be held November 18, and will be facilitated by Colleen Adams, PMP, a Senior Project Manager with the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension’s (BCA) Minnesota Justice Information Services (MNJIS). 

Have you ever felt like you were drowning within your project? Have you had to “rescue” another project manager, or be “saved” by one? If you have, you likely have seen the benefits and pitfalls of doing so. This presentation will dive into the deep end of the project management pool, look at what creates the rip tides that threaten to suck you under (or just suck the life out of you!), and explore how best to go about saving another project manager – or be saved by one.

This presentation will highlight the various ways a project manager can help another project manager who is struggling or already in trouble, differentiate between a project manager in trouble and a troubled project – they are not the same! - and recognize the signs that there may be troubled water ahead.

The MN Chapter of ISPI, an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce a special workshop November 11: “Learning Transfer Strategies That Really Work: Getting Serious About Solving the #1 Problem in Training.”  The session will be all day (8:30-4:00) at the TIES Building on Snelling in St. Paul), and will be facilitated by Dr. Ed Holton is the Jones S. Davis Distinguished Professor of Human Resource, Leadership, and Organization Development at Louisiana State University and CEO of Learning Transfer Solutions Global and Holton Consulting Inc.

Learning transfer – or the lack thereof – is the #1 problem in training today. Most estimates point to only 15-30% of learning transfers are actually used on-the-job to improve performance. That means that at least $100 billion is wasted every year, and perhaps much more. Yet, little progress has been made in solving this problem in practice even though there have been significant advances in research.

This workshop will build on our Thursday evening program to focus on action strategies that really work to solve the problem.  Participants will learn about evidence-based strategies that can significantly increase learning transfer and ROI from training. Using a systems approach and the latest tools Dr. Holton and his colleagues have developed, participants will be equipped to make a real difference in their organizations.  These tools include the Learning Transfer System Inventory (LTSI) and TransferLogixTM, their cutting edge learning transfer management system.

Workshop Objectives…Participants in this program will be able to:

• Diagnose barriers to learning transfer in organizations.
• Develop strategies to overcome barriers to learning transfer.
• Implement a process to significantly enhance learning transfer.
• Measure learning transfer pre- and post-training.
• Anticipate systemic barriers based on research.
• Apply learning transfer research in organizations.
• Use a software system to automate learning transfer strategies.

Cost is $240 ($200 for Council members). 

MNISPI’s November Chapter Meeting will be held the night before on Thursday, Nov. 10, 2011, from 5:30 -8:00 PM at the same location.  Dr. Holton will address “Solving the Learning Transfer Puzzle: Tools and Processes from Research.”

Please join the MN Facilitators Network, an alliance partner of the Council, for their next meeting November 10: “Experiencing the Social Process Triangle: Making Sense of Whole Systems.”  The session will be facilitated by BethMarie Ward, owner and principal of Regenerate Group.

Learn to create a picture of a system and make sense of its economic, political and cultural forces. If you need to facilitate a systems change, then adding the Social Process Triangle tool to your facilitator's toolkit can increase your effectiveness.

Unlike some “flavor of the month” tools, the Social Process Triangle, a whole systems change tool developed by the Institute of Cultural Affairs, was birthed in the 1960’s. It was nurtured until an effort involving 1500 books and more than one thousand volunteers worldwide led to its completion in 1971. It has been used for analyzing complex global problems ever since.

Enterprise Minnesota, a partner of the MN Council for Quality, is pleased to announce their next upcoming event: “The Value of Your Business: What Expert Buyers Are Looking For” on October 27 in Brooklyn Park.

How can your business achieve strategic Value in the eyes of an investor? Investors will ask... Is your company known and competing in a market niche that can be successful? Do you deliver products/services most efficiently? Do you differentiate products and services within markets with the greatest potential?

The key lies in how well your company understands the role of Values in the journey to create business Value. Do your company's Values fit well with prospective partners? How do you know? How can a company raise its Value? Can a company and prospective partner agree? How does this negotiation take place?

Come learn from an expert investor on how to develop identifiable worth inside your company.

Granite Equity Partners will share their experience investing and partnering with fifteen companies over the past nine years. Granite Equity is a Minnesota-based company that invests equity capital in established, private companies to facilitate phased owner retirements and staged ownership sales. In addition, several company leaders will discuss their perspectives about transitioning a business, and the role of a company in raising both Values and Value.

The University of Minnesota’s College of Continuing Education, an alliance partner of the Council, is pleased to announce their upcoming improvement and business courses.  Council members receive a 10% discount on all CCE courses.

10/25 Project Execution $395

10/26 Employee and Labor Relations $395

10/26 Business Analysis Planning $395

10/27 Developing Direct Reports and Employees $395

10/28 Career Planning Workshop $495

10/28 Applied Project Management $395

11/1 Improving Work Processes $395

11/1 Data and Process Modeling $750

11/3 Exercising Organizational Influence $395

11/4 Documenting Employee Performance $395

11/8 Measuring and Improving Work Processes $995

11/8 Project Execution $395

11/8 Organizational Training and Development $395

11/8 Project Control and Closure $395

11/9 Business Process Modeling and Analysis $750

11/10 Creativity and Innovation $395

11/11 Writing Business Reports $395

11/15 Employee Benefits Practices and Trends $395

11/15 Interviewing and Selection Processes $395

11/15 Project Risk Management $395

11/17 Successfully Dealing with Conflict at Work $395

11/17 Workforce Talent Assessment and Planning $795

11/29 Project Leadership $395

11/29 Coaching for Excellence $395

11/29 Business Process Modeling and Analysis $750

11/30 Designing On-Boarding Programs $395

11/30 Use Case Fundamentals $395

12/1 Ethical Business Decision Making $395

12/2 Working Assertively $395

12/6 Project Negotiation and Conflict Resolution $395

12/6 Technology for HR Management $395

12/6 Project Risk Management $395

12/8 Leading Successful Team Intervention Strategies $795

12/13 Applied Project Management $395

12/13 Capstone in Supervision $750

12/13 The Human Resource Audit $395

12/13 Process Innovation $995

12/14 Facilitating User Acceptance Testing $395

12/15 Verbal and Nonverbal Communication Skills $395

12/16 Writing for the Web $395

The Council is pleased to announce a new partnership with Hamline University.  Members of the Council are now eligible to receive 15% off of all professional education courses offered through the Hamline School of Business.  To receive the discount, please contact Bridget at bknisely01@hamline.edu or 651-523-2650.

Upcoming Hamline courses include:

Nov 7 – Dec 9 (10 sessions): Lean Six Sigma Black Belt Training, $3000

Nov 8, Dec 6: Non Profit Program Evaluation and Performance Management (CRN 13456), $295

Nov 8, Dec 6: Non Profit Program Evaluation and Performance Management, $295

Nov 15: Major Gifts 2: Identifying, Researching and Cultivating Your Top Major Gift Prospects, $249

Nov 17: Systemizing Innovation: Making Breakthrough Thinking Habitual, $395

South Central College is pleased to announce their upcoming quality and performance improvement curriculum.  Council members are entitled to a 10% discount.

The following courses will be held at the Faribault campus (prices before member discount):

Project Management, Oct 25, T, 8a-4:30p, 8 hours, $235

Measurement Systems Analysis (MSA), Nov 2, 8a-12n, 4 hours, $125

Lean 101: Principles of Lean Manufacturing , Nov 8, 8a-4:30p, 8 hours, $249

Introduction to Quality, Nov 15 & 16, TW, 8a-4:30p, 16 hours, $445

Problem Solving Tools & Methods, Dec 1, 8a-4:30p, 8 hours, $235

Failure Mode & Effects Analysis (FMEA), Dec 8, 8a-4:30p, 8 hours, $235

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