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