December, 2021

At Wilson Peer Group Meetings, Fast Beats Slow

Verne Harnish, world-renown entrepreneur, founder EO, and author of Scaling Up, led an executive education session for Wilson’s Next Level Peer Group at Busch Stadium in St. Louis, Missouri. The event was the 11th consecutive university for the group and brought together five CEOs and senior teams to focus on agile leadership. Featured L-R: Elias Godinez, Pacific Landscape Management, Oregon; Loren McIrvin, Allied Landscapes, San Francisco; Steve Seeley, Stay Green Inc., Los Angeles; Brad Cox, LMC Houston; Verne Harnish, front center; John Munie, Focal Pointe Outdoor Solutions, and St. Louis event host; Randy Ferrari, LMC Houston; Bruce Wilson, Bruce Wilson & Co.; Bob Grover, Pacific Landscape Management, Oregon and president, NALP board of directors; and Joe Kujawa, Bruce Wilson & Co.

Making an intentional decision to continuously invest in performance improvement seems like a simple thing to achieve. But ask any CEO who’s tried and the answer is, not as simple as it seems.

If the only real sustainable advantage is in learning faster than your competition, how do we do that at speed? And how do we get everyone on board?  

Here’s How: Learning Together Works

Because performance-based learning is based on incremental change, input from your entire company matters. That’s why our peer group program includes opportunities for CEOs to mobilize their teams to learn together. 

At our peer group conferences and meetings, employees and decision-makers at all levels are often included in the conversation. Because if employees need to take an ownership role in, and be accountable to, their company’s future, they need to know what the future entails.  

This is why we believe communication regarding the future of work, the skills needed to manage change, and the importance of agility and scalability make our peer group and its education program a solid investment that will deliver measurable return on your investment training dollars, and define and improve your organization’s way forward. 

A recent peer group university scored impressive gains doing just that. The university brought together company owners and senior executives from the peer group’s five member companies who learned how to improve the way they recharge their teams, inspire their customers, and continuously improve the way they create and deliver value.

The big story for Bruce Wilson & Company peer groups is the scale and scope of deliverables and benefits.

Let’s take a look:

  • 2022 is our 17th year leading improvement initiatives, our 20th year consulting, coaching and advising, and for our founder and Lifetime Achievement Award winner, Bruce Wilson, 50 years of cumulative knowledge and C-suite expertise leading multiple companies to improved profitability.
  • With the exception of 2020, we’ve facilitated 4 big conferences per year, 32 group meetings per year, featuring multiple program tracks and customized content, such as benchmarking and KPI analysis, compensation studies, customer surveys, productivity improvement, and market trend impacts. 
  • An estimated 400-750 professionals are trained in new ways to improve leadership performance. In other words, our program, from its inception, has inspired and influenced a generation of more than 5,000 leaders and emerging leaders from every sector and discipline in the landscape industry.
  • Our clients and their teams have benefitted from more than 100 cumulative days of learning, including immersive two-and-a-half day events, custom content workshops, webinars, and have received access to proprietary world-class entrepreneurial networks and resources, such as Scaling Up.
  • Our education events qualify for NALP and SIMA CEUs.
  • To ensure personal attention, we keep the ratio of participant companies-to facilitator, speaker, thought leader at 6: or 7:1 
  • Our groups average 6 companies each, because we believe small group discussions benefit critical thinking, problem solving and deeper learning.
  • In 2021, our consulting and peer group team has advised a growing client portfolio of landscape companies representing $1billion in aggregate total revenue.  Of those…
    • We’ve helped position more than 25 companies to successfully exit or transition their business
    • Helped new leaders, start-ups and entrepreneurs establish their organizations and exceed growth targets
    • Placed dozens of specialized professionals in jobs across the country
    • Coached, mentored and consulted with clients in long-standing private engagements in business planning, marketing and training
    • Helped organizations in role as fractional CFO to transform financial strategy and system needs
    • Analyzed thousands of key performance indicators to provide comparative benchmarking data 
    • Won major leadership and project awards for our client companies and/or their CEOs 
    • Generated favorable publicity and market positioning for company owners
    • Facilitated strategic plans, financial plans, marketing plans, and technology and organizational development plans
    • Secured speaking opportunities for CEO clients at conferences, and on webinars, panels, and podcasts
    • Helped companies implement advanced technology and migrate to enterprise systems and digital platforms
    • Produced and analyzed thousands of customer surveys
    • Have authored columns in landscape and snow industry trade magazines on topics ranging from best practices to sustainability to technology and thought leadership
    • Served on national and regional and state association boards and foundations
    • Have solid relationships across the greater green industry
    • Hosted networking events with recreational amenities, activities, and spouse programs to build friendship and rapport before getting down to business

Giving Life to Big Ideas

Delivery systems for reporting and analysis, and how we communicate and work with customers may be based on the latest algorithm, but the best-managed organizations and the most promising opportunities for growth and innovation will always come from people who think big. 

To find a CEO peer group that helps you remain competitive and give life to your big idea, contact Joe Kujawa at (414) 349-3382, or joe.kujawa@brucewilsoncompany.com

 

Bruce Wilson & Company – December 2021