Scaling Up Magazine Scaling Up Magazine Summer 2018 | Page 26
Highlights: ScaleUp Summit
New Orleans | May 22-23, 2018
By: Alison Diboll
VERNE HARNISH and Gazelles, in
collaboration with Bloomberg Live,
hosted the 2018 Scale Up Summit in New
Orleans this past May. The conference
attracted 900 leaders from fast-growing
mid-market firms (i.e., $5 million to $500
million) in this country and beyond.
It seemed no coincidence that the
summit’s underlying theme was “leaders
are readers.” Many of us frequently
encounter some episodic event that
affects the way we live, or think, or
manage anxiety. Scaling Up’s speakers
promoted knowledge-based decision
making and clarity on who we choose to
be as humans in sometimes challenging
environments. Those insights were
embedded in speakers’ topics and
summarized in their best-selling books.
The speakers—ten of the world’s most
accomplished, award-winning authors—
shared insights from research and
field study, plus Scale Up X speakers
recounted guiding principles and lessons
learned as CEOs on the front lines.
A subtle undercurrent throughout
speakers’ remarks focused on strong
interpersonal relationships as key to
business and personal success.
Iterations of this theme appeared
repeatedly, as in Judith E. Glaser’s
remarks on conversational excellence.
Judith’s premise is to release oxytocin
for yourself and your speaking partner,
promoting health, and stronger
interpersonal connections. Her remarks
delineated how to succeed in challenging
interpersonal relationships, both as a
leader and as a peer. In a particularly
vulnerable moment, Judith spoke openly
about her ongoing battles with cancer
and how oxytocin, released during
well-crafted interactions with others,
seems to have generated quantitative
medical improvements in her health.
Tom Peters’ lovable curmudgeon persona
was camouflage for his clearly iterated
(read: loudly yelled) declarations that
women are the most potent market
opportunity today. Tom went on to explain,
as only Tom can, that if our businesses are
not targeting women, both as consumers
and as professionals, we’re “stupid.” (This
line provoked much rapid note taking
in the audience.) Tom’s next maxim
was to target the second largest market
sector—“old people” like him—and the
assets amassed over their lifetimes. Tom’s
key core value is “excellent listening,” a
correlate to Judith’s and others’ emphasis
on the value of interpersonal relationships
inside and outside of our companies.
Jeff Hoffman’s utterly moving remarks
came in the last session of the conference,
during which Jeff spoke of his early
ambition to actually love his job and,
from there, how he created multiple
successful companies. As his vision
evolved and matured, Jeff built a legacy
that supersedes money, or assets, or
fame. It was those stories that shifted
the tenor in the room from laughter at
Jeff’s youthful audacity to misty eyes
over his commitment to contribute.
As one audience member said, Scaling
Up is “all about community and learning
as a community,” and speaker David
Meerman Scott asked us if we “can get
into the social space or the personal
space of our customers.” These are only
some of the consistent ties to questions
of who we are as individuals and what
our companies represent and how we
build trust. Tom Peters explained that the
Fortune 500 companies employ about
6 percent of the US population, and it’s
our smaller, more populous companies
who employ the rest. That’s the abiding
value of attending Scaling Up Summits—
learning to be our best selves, for our
companies, communities, and employees.
Our community of entrepreneurs and
business leaders will reconvene in
Denver this October to continue building
on the foundation set in New Orleans.
In the words of Jeff Hoffman, “if you
want to make the world a better place,
unleash an army of entrepreneurs.”
Join our Scaling Up Army!
scaleupsummit.biz
Alison Diboll is a consulting Chief Marketing
Officer with a subfocus on integrated marketing.
She can be reached at [email protected]
and is based in both New Orleans and New York.
"There’s nothing quite like a good jolt from Tom Peters to snap our team out
of the ordinary day-to-day. The 2018 Spring ScaleUp Summit recalibrated
our attitude towards growth and entrepreneurship in an industry where we
are too dependent on traditional me