Kevin & Jackie Freiberg Publish New Book

From the best-selling authors of Nuts! (more than 500,000 copies in print), an inspired, unconventional, and even outrageous blueprint for achieving long-term record profits while having fun along the way

GUTS!
COMPANIES THAT BLOW THE DOORS OFF BUSINESS-AS-USUAL

KEVIN AND JACKIE FREIBERG

GUTS!
Companies That Blow The Doors Off Business-As-Usual
By Kevin and Jackie Freiberg
Published by Currency/Doubleday
Publication date: January 6, 2004
Hardcover; $26.00; 288 Pages
ISBN # 0-385-50961-8

How do you create a business with the energy, creativity, and chutzpah needed to consistently outsmart and outshine the competition? How can you recruit and retain a workforce of talented and fully engaged employees who are willing to risk it all and create extraordinary results in the process? How do you build a brand that inspires the kind of passionate loyalty among your customers that leads to long-term profits? In short, how can you make your organization one that blows the doors off business-as-usual?

Nearly a decade ago, in their best-selling book Nuts! Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, business consultants Kevin and Jackie Freiberg chronicled the exhilarating story of a now-legendary U.S. company that had come up with creative, even uniquely unconventional answers to each of those questions. Inspired by the Southwest story and its impact on all those who heard it, the Freibergs set out to find other outstanding companies with unusual strategies for attracting talent and ensuring success.

In their new book, GUTS!: Companies that Blow the Doors Off Business-as-Usual (Currency/Doubleday; January 2004; Hardcover; $26.00) the Friebergs now share what they discovered on their quest – one that involved five years of first-hand research and included in-depth conversations with leaders and employees from top to bottom of the companies they studied.

Taking readers behind the scenes of more than twenty enterprises that have turned the traditional rules of business on their head, they show how anyone can apply the unconventional strategies used by industry pioneers to create long-term record profits and turn them into concrete steps to make their own organizations more competitive.Whether well-known or obscure, low-key or flamboyant, all of the companies profiled in GUTS! are run by “gutsy leaders”—passionate men and women who don’t hesitate to slaughter the sacred cows of conventions and who possess the courage and vision needed to discard traditional management rules, rituals, and expectations in favor of forging a new path that will dominate business in the decades to come. “Gutsy leaders reject the mercenary notion that employees are nothing more than human resources akin to capital, fuel, oil, or machine tools,” explain the Freibergs. “Instead, they see their people as individuals with unique gifts and talents, eager to realize their potential. Gutsy leaders aren’t afraid to be criticized or even mocked by their competitors. With bravery and vision, they have dismantled fear-based management and replaced it with heart, soul, discipline, and humor—and long-term record profits.”While the organizations featured in GUTS! have different leaders, styles, and strategies, they are all equally gutsy and absolutely unconventional when it comes to creating great places to work and do business.

Through stories such as those of the “servant leadership” of James Blanchard at Synovus, the “sacred trust” that USAA, lead by chairman & chief executive officer Bob Davis, is committed to maintaining with its customers, the “management by walking away” philosophy of the late Henry Quadracci of Quad/Graphics, the “coddle the employees” policies of Jim Goodnight of SAS Institute, and the “Idea City” created by Roy Spence of perennial award-winning advertising agency GSD&M, the Freibergs pinpoint exactly how and why gutsy leaders and their companies produce such impressive results. Capturing the primal entrepreneurial drive behind some of America’s most unusual companies, they spell out the secrets to achieving long-term business success while keeping your values and having fun along the way, including:

GUTSY LEADERS BRAND THEIR CULTURES
GUTSY LEADERS CREATE A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP
GUTSY LEADERS HIRE PEOPLE WHO DON’T SUCK
GUTSY LEADERS LEAD WITH LOVE
GUTSY LEADERS MAKE BUSINESS HEROIC
GUTSY LEADERS INSPIRE FUN

Proving that it is possible to have fun, live your values, and still make blockbuster profits, GUTS! will be must-reading for anyone who hungers to make their organization more competitive, to find creative ways to add more value to their customers, and to inspire their people to execute with a sense of urgency and deliver extraordinary results. “Our hope is that this book will help you become more gutsy, too—more engaged, more considerate, more courageous, and most important, a better leader,” write the Freibergs. “You may just blow the doors off business as usual in your corner of the world. All it takes is guts.”

HOW GUTSY LEADERS BLOW THE DOORS OFF BUSINESS-AS-USUAL

GUTSY LEADERS BRAND THEIR CULTURES
Companies with branded cultures are places where people both want to work and choose to stay. Crafting a culture begins with people, so start by creating a workplace that takes great care of its employees, not just its customers. Your employees, culture, products, and services are the brand; your people are the ambassadors of the culture. They are a business’s most visible and powerful sales and public-relations tools, much more so than any new branding advertising campaign, logo, or slogan.

GUTSY LEADERS CREATE A SENSE OF OWNERSHIP
Gutsy leaders know that employees must feel a personal stake in the enterprise’s success before they can be expected to step up to the plate. But if you want your people to think and act like owners of the business, you have to do more than just offer profit sharing, provide stock options, and share financial information. You must educate them—by demystifying the language of business, explaining what the numbers mean, and teaching how that information can be applied. After all, how can we expect people to think for themselves and work to build a strong, profitable enterprise if they have no idea what goes into creating the bottom line? How can we make them responsible if they don’t know how their actions affect the business?

GUTSY LEADERS HIRE PEOPLE WHO DON’T SUCK
Gutsy leaders understand the importance of hiring people who don’t suck energy out of their organization and of developing leaders who are magnets for world-class talent. But finding talented people is only the first step. They have to be ready and able to do what you need doing, and they have to be the right fit for your organization. Have you defined what it takes to be a great employee in your company? Make hiring a strategic initiative. Identify people who already work for you who fit that description. Then ask their customers, employees, peers, and managers what makes them so effective and easy to do business with. And remember to trust your gut! If you don’t feel a particular person would “fit” well in your culture, trust your instincts and do not compromise.

GUTSY LEADERS LEAD WITH LOVE
Inherent in the human condition is the need to be loved, to be cared for, so why would we think that need evaporates when we enter the workplace? In fact, it doesn’t make sense to expect your employees to function effectively in an environment that doesn’t acknowledge their psychological and emotional needs. Employees working at companies that care about them are far more than satisfied—they are engaged, loyal, and fully committed to the organization with their minds and hearts. Such organizations are much more likely to attract and retain world-class talent, and their employees are far more likely to perform at higher levels of commitment and productivity, which helps create loyal customers and increase profitability. Great leaders have the guts to love—to acknowledge compassion for and care of others as a valuable business asset.

GUTSY LEADERS MAKE BUSINESS HEROIC
Studies that ask employees to rank their priorities at work show that meaningful work outranks compensation. What happens when an organization’s leader gives his or her people a heroic cause—a way to believe that their work contributes to a better world? For one, people may feel more content or relaxed. They become fully engaged mentally, physically, spiritually. And their zeal, of course, translates into financial reward for their companies. Almost by definition, a company with a heroic cause attracts purpose driven, heroic people whose dedication translates into impressive profits. Gutsy leaders who strive to motivate others make time to help people see how their work is connected to something bigger.

GUTSY LEADERS INSPIRE FUN
Far too many managers believe that fun and business aren’t compatible. And they pay a price both professionally and personally. When we visit somber, uptight organizations that discourage fun, we consistently find low morale and productivity. More important, once customers experience the stifling environment, they tend to take their business elsewhere. Fun sets you apart from the crowd and gives you an identity that makes your competitors seem boring. It attracts customers, fosters trust, levels hierarchy, reduces conflict and burnout, and stimulates creativity. Gutsy leaders recognize that fun pays; they see it as a core business strategy that doesn’t interfere with seriousness.

 

About the Authors

KEVIN and JACKIE FREIBERG, the authors of the best-selling book Nuts!: Southwest Airlines’ Crazy Recipe for Business and Personal Success, are acclaimed business consultants and professional speakers on leadership, culture, and customer loyalty. As founders and principals of the San Diego Consulting Group, Inc., the Freibergs help business leaders translate winning strategies from great companies into their own formulas for success. They speak at more than one hundred events a year, with companies such as Ernst & Young, Federal Express, Hallmark Gold Crown Stores, Major League Baseball, Wachovia and American Express. They live in San Diego, California.