Evergreen Journal by Tugboat Institute: Recent Episodes
Tugboat Institute Members & Evergreen Thought Leaders
These are the stories of the Evergreen™️ movement.
Evergreen leaders are seasoned entrepreneurs, CEOs and presidents with the vision, creativity, resourcefulness, patience and grit to build and scale a business that will stay private indefinitely. They measure success by how well they deliver on their mission and how well they embody the 7Ps: Purpose, Perseverance, People First, Profit, Private, Paced Growth, & Pragmatic Innovation.
Tugboat Institute is a membership organization that brings together Evergreen businesses across industry sectors to share best practices and unique insights, and to develop trusted bonds for their respective Evergreen paths.
Nick Craig is the President of the Core Leadership Institute, and author of Leading From Purpose. Over the past decade and a half, he has helped thousands of leaders discover their Purpose, what Nick considers to be the unique gift they bring to the world.
In this Tugboat Institute® Talk, Nick uses the world of toys, and LEGO specifically, to explore how customers deeply connect with companies that have an authentic Purpose and what happens when you depart from that Purpose. He challenges Evergreen® leaders to remain true to their company's unique Purpose, through seasons of challenge and success.
Listen and be inspired to anchor yourself to your company's authentic Purpose, even when circumstances tempt you to stray.
Many people carry the belief that they simply aren't "math people," that ability is something you're born with, not something you build. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jo Boaler dismantles that myth and makes the case for a limitless approach to learning, one that applies as much to leaders and teams as it does to students.
Jo is a professor of mathematics education at Stanford University and co-founder of Stanford's YouCubed research center, which reaches educators, parents, and students in more than 160 countries. Drawing on her book Limitless Mind, she explains the neuroscience behind learning: every new challenge forms or strengthens brain pathways, and struggle is where the deepest understanding and creativity actually take root. Jo shares research on how mindset shapes performance and even long-term health, and describes how a mistakes-friendly culture, encouragement of skepticism and reasoning, and collaboration over individual brilliance can transform outcomes in the classroom. These same behaviors sit close to the core of Evergreen® leadership.
Listen and reconsider the limits you may be placing on yourself, your people, and what your organization is capable of learning.
Every founder and generational leader carries an origin story. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Everett Harper invites us to consider what it means to remember that story, and how the act of remembrance itself shapes the values a company passes on.
Everett is the co-founder and former CEO of Truss and a longtime champion of Purpose-driven leadership. Drawing on the history of Juneteenth, and on his own family's story, he traces the entrepreneurial spirit, community-building, and resilience that emerged from freedom. He makes a compelling case that annual rituals of remembrance, whether a national holiday or a company gathering, are how values survive and travel across generations.
Watch and be inspired to honor your own origin story and to pass on the values at the heart of your company to the next generation.
Luck is the number one factor for career success, said legendary executive search pioneer Egon Zehnder to a young Claudio Fernández-Aráoz early in his career. After four decades of placing leaders at the highest levels of global business, Claudio has come to agree. But luck, he argues, is only part of the story. The factor leaders can control, and the one that separates good organizations from great ones, is the quality of their people decisions.
Claudio is a top global expert on leadership and talent, family businesses, and personal growth, having personally conducted more than 20,000 leadership interviews. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, he draws on decades of experience and vivid real-world examples to explain why our brains are hardwired to make poor hiring choices, how to assess both competence and potential, and why making great people decisions is the most powerful driver of lasting organizational success, one that aligns naturally with the Evergreen® commitment to building companies that endure.
Listen and be inspired to raise the standard for how you find and develop the people who will carry your company forward.
Tugboat Institute® Member Kent Johnson is the CEO of Highlights for Children, a family-led legacy brand dedicated to building a more optimistic and empathetic world for children. After an early career in physics and medical diagnostics, Kent has spent the last 20 years leading a media business centered on human development.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Kent explores how their commitment to Purpose acts as both an anchor during tragedy and an engine for innovation. He shares the history of Highlights—from its founding as a "dream child" to navigating a 1960 aeronautical disaster that claimed the lives of key leaders —and explains how the company evolved from a single magazine into a global, diversified organization. By refreshing their core mission to empower agile decision-making , Kent illustrates how a Purpose-driven culture enables a heritage brand to thrive in a subscription economy and forge impactful partnerships with tech giants.
Listen and be inspired to look beyond your product to your true Purpose and to build a culture of commitment that can withstand generational trauma and the constant evolution of our ever-changing digital world.
Jim Gilmore is the co-founder of Strategic Horizons LLP and the co-author of The Experience Economy and Look: A Toolkit for Making Better Decisions. As a pioneer in the study of consumer experiences and observational methods, Jim has spent decades helping organizations see the world—and their opportunities—more clearly.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jim challenges the modern habit of screen-induced tunnel vision, arguing that true innovation begins with active, intentional observation of our immediate surroundings. He introduces his "Six Looking Glasses" framework—metaphorical tools ranging from binoculars to blindfolds—designed to help leaders sharpen their looking skills and overcome confirmation bias. He demonstrates how spotting a simple detail in the everyday environment can lead to transformative breakthroughs.
Listen and be inspired to reclaim the power of observation and master the art of looking as the essential first step toward strategic thinking and long-term Evergreen® success.
Larry Hofstetter is the first non-family president of the 187-year-old Schaeffer Manufacturing Company. As the steward of a business founded in 1839, Larry has mastered the delicate balance of honoring nearly two centuries of history while navigating the complexities of modern disruption.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Larry explores his framework for cultivating a "winner's mindset" that transforms unforeseen disruptive events from potential crises into strategic opportunities. Drawing on Schaeffer's historical resilience through depressions, catastrophic fires, and global wars, he illustrates how a foundation of trust enables an organization to adapt with speed and clarity. By distilling 180 years of institutional knowledge into an Evergreen® philosophy, Larry provides a roadmap for leading through uncertainty while maintaining a steadfast commitment to future generations.
Listen and be inspired to view disruption as a catalyst for growth, to build deep-rooted trust within your organization, and to lead with a long-term vision that ensures your company is built to last and win for another seven generations.
Tugboat Institute® member Joe Motz, founder of The Motz Corporation, has spent nearly five decades building a legacy of innovation and integrity at one of the world's most respected turf firms. But after transitioning the company to 100% employee ownership in 2018, Joe faced his toughest finish line yet: a 70th-birthday "bucket list" adventure that would take everything he had.
In this Tugboat Talk, Joe recounts his grueling 3,000-mile solo paddle to raise $300,000 for The Bridge Adaptive Sports & Recreation, an organization that creates opportunities for individuals with disabilities to thrive through sport. From the panic of a runaway boat to the mental fatigue of 20,000 strokes a day, Joe shares how he leaned on his community, and his Purpose, to Persevere.
Listen to Joe's talk to learn why the hardest journeys often lead to the greatest ripple effects in leadership and life, and for the reminder to paddle on, through even the most challenging of times.
Ashley Russo is a visionary leader, award-winning journalist, and entrepreneur who bridges the gap between industrial legacy and modern storytelling. Through her dual roles as CEO of Magnaplate and President of ASR Media, Ashley has mastered the art of blending the technical precision of manufacturing with the creative vision of media.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Ashley explores the unique tension of leading two highly contrasting industries and shares how these seemingly different worlds inform one another in unexpected ways. By harmonizing her family's multi-generational heritage with her own entrepreneurial drive, Ashley provides a compelling perspective on what it means to honor a professional legacy while courageously founding your own.
Listen and be inspired to blend vision with tradition, to find synergy in your own professional roles, and to lead your team with a renewed sense of purpose and innovation.
Rob Cordova is a thought leader, adjunct professor, and educator who transforms corporate learning into meaningful and inspiring experiences. Through his research on how our personal backgrounds shape our actions, Rob has developed a unique framework of reflective questions designed to help leaders step beyond their comfort zones.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Rob challenges us to confront our natural tendency to avoid uncertainty and reminds us that in moments of ambiguity, creativity isn't optional—it's essential. By modeling the very vulnerability and courage he encourages in others, Rob provides a heartfelt perspective on how to navigate the unknown while staying true to Evergreen® values.
Watch and be inspired to meet challenges with creativity and innovation, and to lead your team with newfound courage and clarity.
David Surdam is a historical economist and professor at the University of Northern Iowa who studies how organizations adapt under extreme economic pressure.
In this Tugboat Institute® Summit 2025 talk, he shares the story of Major League Baseball during the Great Depression, when team owners faced one of the most challenging economic periods in American history. Their adaptation strategies not only helped them survive, but even thrive, offering timely lessons on resilience, ingenuity, and the enduring power of cultural institutions during difficult times.
Listen and be inspired to consider how your own organization might adapt in the face of a major economic downturn.
Over the last several years, private equity has continued its rapid expansion, reshaping the landscape of business ownership and investment. What was once limited to a small circle of institutional investors now reaches into 401k portfolios, making PE an increasingly dominant force in our economy. While this growth has fueled opportunity for many, it also poses new challenges for Evergreen® companies whose long-term, purpose-driven approach stands in sharp contrast to private equity's short-term return model.
Dave Whorton, Founder and CEO of Tugboat Institute®, revisits his 2019 talk, "The Rise of Private Equity," to explore how the private equity landscape has evolved and what its growing influence means for Evergreen leaders today. He reaffirms that private equity remains kryptonite to Evergreen businesses yet highlights examples of Tugboat Institute member companies that have found unconventional ways to engage with private equity and strategic capital while staying true to their Evergreen values.
Listen and gain perspective on how to navigate the shifting capital landscape without compromising the purpose and principles that define Evergreen companies.
Mark Steele is the president and owner of Craftsmen Industries and a former turnaround specialist for private equity firms. Early in his career, he stepped into struggling businesses and made the tough calls others avoided.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Mark shares how the opportunity to lead family-owned Craftsmen Industries sparked a profound shift in his career and business philosophy. He explores how leading the company, and ultimately becoming its owner, led him to embrace an approach to leadership and ownership grounded in Evergreen® values.
Listen and be inspired by Mark's journey from turnaround expert to Evergreen leader.
Adam Echter is a partner at Simon-Kucher and a global expert in pricing strategy. A thought-leader and consultant, Adam brings decades of experience helping companies shape strategies that drive both profit and purpose.
In this Tugboat Institute® Summit talk, Adam challenges the myth that purpose and profit are mutually exclusive. He lays out actionable pricing strategies that align with Evergreen® values, helping leaders create lasting value for customers while sustaining healthy margins. Through case studies and practical tools, Adam demonstrates that pricing, done well, is not just a financial lever but a strategic expression of purpose.
Listen and be inspired to rethink pricing as a pathway to strengthen both your impact and your bottom line.
Tugboat Institute® member Ashli Desai is President of Larry Walker Associates, an environmental engineering firm focused on water quality management. After founder Larry Walker’s departure, the company remained family-owned but was led by non-family executives. This divide between ownership and leadership created challenges in communication and alignment among the family, leadership, and employees.
In this Summit 2025 talk, Ashli tells her story of bridging leadership gaps, crafting a unified, shared vision for the future that brought all stakeholders together.
Watch and be inspired to think about how you might strengthen alignment in your own organization.
In business as in life, longevity often invites assumptions. When we hear about a company that has thrived for over a century, it’s easy to picture a large, slow-moving, and rigid organization. But surviving, and thriving, across generations requires quite the opposite: adaptability, agility, and a willingness to evolve.
Jayne Millard embodies this mindset as the fourth-generation leader of Turtle & Hughes, a family-run electrical and industrial distributor. Rather than resting on tradition, Jayne and her team are embracing innovation by focusing on sustainability and partnering with startups to stay ahead of industry trends. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jayne shares the rich history of Turtle & Hughes alongside her own unconventional personal journey, one that fuels her courage and inspires her leadership today.
Watch and discover how enduring businesses stay relevant by blending heritage with forward-thinking action.
Business leaders often rely on rules of thumb, simple tools designed to guide decisions in complex environments. But when followed too rigidly, even the most trusted rules can create blind spots. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Dave Whorton explores this tension and offers a fresh perspective on how Evergreen® leaders might think differently.
Dave is the founder and CEO of Tugboat Institute and the author of Another Way: Building Companies That Last…and Last…and Last. Drawing on decades of experience, he challenges widely accepted misconceptions about growth and encourages Evergreen leaders to embrace the courage, patience, and discipline required to build enduring businesses.
Listen and be inspired to rethink familiar formulas and to lead with intention and imagination.
In business as in life, there are trade-offs. This is an accepted part of the business world as well, and is usually accepted as an unavoidable truth. This includes pairs like Profit and Purpose, or Profit and Paced Growth, which can sometimes appear to be at odds with one another. But what if this didn’t always have to be true? Marianne Lewis proposes a leadership strategy that can help resolve this tension.
Marianne is Professor in the Carl H. Lindner College of Business at University of Cincinnati and co-author of Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Marianne makes an argument for finding a way to embrace, rather than cave to tensions within an organization. It starts with a shift in mindset.
Watch and be inspired to shift your own mindset, and make room for Both/And, instead of simply Either/Or.
The last five years have seen an ever-tightening talent pool and, therefore, increased competition for great employees. It seemed that it was a pandemic-related phenomenon at first, but demographics tell us that in fact, this is here to stay for many years. Coupled with this tight labor market, employees have become more particular about what they are looking for in their work, and they have become more apt to move on if their situation is not just right. The great resignation and quiet quitting, were, it turns out, just the start. In this era where it has become so challenging to hire great employees and even more so to keep them, Michael Horn invites us to understand why, and how to combat this trend.
Michael is a longtime friend of Tugboat Institute®’s and Co-Founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation. In his recent book, Job Moves, he explores what drives employees to quit so readily and offers them advice about what factors to consider when considering taking this step. In this Tugboat Institute talk, he flips his perspective and offers company leaders a look into the factors that drive employees to quit - and to stay – in order to be more intentional about improving recruitment and reducing turnover. It turns out that many of the things he recommends go hand in hand with being an Evergreen® company.
Watch and consider how you might improve your employees’ experience and keep your best players for the long term.
On May 6, 2025, Another Way: Building Companies That Last...and Last...and Last, by Dave Whorton with Bo Burlingham was released to the public. Their book tells the story of Dave’s journey from Venture Capital’s epicenter in Silicon Valley to founding Tugboat Institute®, an organization dedicated to bringing together, supporting, and championing Evergreen® leaders and their Purpose-driven, Private, enduring companies.
In this conversation moderated by Tugboat Institute member Mel Gravely, Executive Chair of Triversity Construction, Dave and Bo share their experiences conceiving of this project, their working relationship and the process of writing it, and what they hope it will accomplish in society. Mel deftly leads the two friends and co-authors through topics that will touch and inspire you, and that will help you better understand the foundation and the aspirations of the Evergreen movement.
Watch and be inspired to read this book and support this important movement.
Tugboat Institute® member Ford Mennel is the fifth generation leader of his family company, The Mennel Milling Company. In their 139 years, the company has been through many phases, some marked by prosperity and expansion, and some by stagnation and risk. Through it all, the series of family leaders who have shepherded Mennel have succeeded in building an Evergreen® company that is strong, continually expanding, diverse, and surprisingly innovative, given that their industry is one of the oldest in human society.
In this talk, Ford not only shares his family’s and company’s history, the risks they faced, and the strategies that allowed them to survive and thrive over time. He also demonstrates creativity in his approach to Pragmatic Innovation, not just in Mennel Milling’s products and services, but also in his strategic approach to accessing capital for acquisitions while safeguarding the company’s Evergreen® independence.
Watch and be inspired to be innovative in all areas of your company, and to build something that will last.
Dave and Dan Thrasher grew up in the house that served as the first HQ for their parents’ basement waterproofing company, which they had started and grown slowly over decades. By the time the two brothers stepped into the business, their parents had grown it to about $4 million in revenues. In the 20 years since then, Dan has taken over leadership of Thrasher Group, Dave leads the newer company, Supportworks, and together, they have built their companies to an impressive $400 million in revenue.
In this Fireside Chat with Dave Whorton, Dave leads the brothers through stories from their childhood, their entry into the business, and the birth and growth of their respective companies. In their conversation, they cover topics ranging from early forays into entrepreneurship, what they learned and have preserved from each of their parents, key moments through the growth of the business, both before and after they joined, and the effect of the arrival of PE in their space.
Watch and be inspired to lean into your values, make courageous decisions, and find new ways for your business to grow and thrive.
Sonja Lyubomirsky is an experimental social psychologist at University of California, Riverside. She has been studying the science of happiness for decades and her work has included consulting on projects like the film Mission: Joy, featuring the Dalai Lama and Bishop Desmond Tutu.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Sonja poses the question, “Is it possible to become happier?” and shares the findings from her many years of research in order to answer it. Happily, she found that there are many things we can do. Even better, the most powerful ones align with Evergreen® best practice behaviors.
Watch and be inspired to take steps to increase your own happiness, and to connect with others at the same time.
How do creativity and productivity thrive simultaneously in a business? The creative and the business mindsets are often very different in their approach to problem solving and innovation, yet in most professions, success in each area is necessary for companies to grow and thrive. So what are the conditions that make space for both?
Paul Seck is a landscape architect and Partner at MVVA, a leading landscape architecture firm nationwide. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Paul shares how MVVA makes space for both. It starts with a plurality of voices and with a commitment to collaboration.
Listen and learn more about how collaboration is a precondition for creativity and innovation.
Tugboat Institute®’s Gary Kunkle spent many years advising companies around sustained growth and then completing a PhD thesis on the true drivers of sustained growth. Through this work, he has built up an impressive store of data and insight. Gary leads Tugboat’s Paced Growth Team Training and our Executive Team Training Series and has helped many Evergreen® leaders and executives understand their own companies better and set the conditions for sustained growth that will last 100 years or more.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Gary shares a quick insight into why philanthropic efforts, which come naturally to the Purpose-driven Evergreen leader and company, are, in fact, also a wonderful strategy for recruiting, retention, and overall success. Through several examples, he demonstrates that going good is not only good for the community and the world, but god for your bottom line as well.
Listen and be inspired to align your philanthropic efforts with your business’ purpose - and watch both flourish.
Most company leaders can attest to the fact that finding a way to be a present spouse, parent, and even friend while building a business can be extremely challenging. But it is critical for creating a life and lifestyle that are good and sustainable. People often talk about “balance,” but sometimes balance is simply not possible. So seek harmony instead.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Paul Mears III, President, and CEO of Hello! Destination Management, shares his own journey as a CEO, a husband, and a father. Through the different chapters of his life, he tackled this tension with different strategies, and he uncovered some great wisdom along the way. Although he is unfortunately not able to resolve this tension for you, he does offer some strategies and perspectives that might help you as you find your own way through.
Listen and be inspired to seek work/life harmony in the way that works best for you and your family.
Brad Herrmann learned about building and running a business from his father, who had done just that. But then his father sold the company, and the company and the team Brad had grown to love disappeared. He partnered with a friend and founded a new company, and they vowed that would not happen to them.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Brad shares his journey to find a way to ensure that his company, Text-em-All, lasts far beyond his own tenure. The company has grown substantially since its founding in 2005, and Brad and his co-founder were committed to finding a way to ensure it stayed Private and Evergreen® forever. He examined a number of potential ownership models and finally hit on the Employee Owned Trust (EOT). They have just completed their conversion to an EOT and Brad is a big fan.
Listen and learn more about EOT, and whether or not it might be right for your company.
Change is uncomfortable, especially when we did not seek it and when it sets us on paths we would never have chosen. How we choose to deal with the inevitable surprises life has in store for us is where we really find out who we are and what we are capable of. This is true in our everyday lives, as well as in our jobs and careers.
In this talk, Tugboat Institute® member Elizabeth Glasbrenner shares her story of dealing with change. Elizabeth co-founded her company, Smiley Technologies, with her brother after their father sold his own company and they perceived a window of opportunity. Over the following years, as she started her family and worked on the business, she encountered several twists of fate she had not planned for at all, both at home and at work. As she faced the huge changes that presented themselves, she realized she had a choice: to let change happen to her… or to choose to embrace it and make it work for her.
Listen and be inspired by this extraordinary story to choose to be an agent of change, rather than a victim of it.
Tugboat Institute® member Kirk Aubry leads Savage Services, a transportation company based in Utah that moves and manages critical materials. In the years he has led the company, they have seen impressive growth. Rather than simply sit back and admire their success, Kirk asked himself, why? He spent dedicated time and effort exploring this question, and has reached a clear conclusion: connection.
Connection is, in Kirk’s words, “The Secret Sauce” that has allowed for Savage’s success and growth. Connection amongst team members, with their customers, and with their community. This realization is, in many ways, a great confirmation of the Evergreen® model and mindset, because creating connection starts with communication, care, and a focus on People.
Listen and be inspired to examine and improve connection throughout your organization.
Jeff Patterson is the CEO and founder of Gaggle, an EdTech software company that exists to protect students in schools. As a company founder, he has fought hard to create and build Gaggle, and along with it an entire industry, and he has remained committed to the Evergreen® path throughout. However, as committed as he is to the Evergreen 7Ps® principles, he has had a nagging feeling for years that he needs more than a wonderful culture to survive for the long term.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jeff shares his own journey toward creating a meaningful and effective strategy for Gaggle. After searching in vain for the “right” strategy, he embarked on his own learning journey, reading many books and talking with many leaders about the ingredients of an effective strategy. Here, he shares his learnings and explains why, in his eyes, culture is important, but without a strong strategy, it’s not enough.
Liusten and be inspired to dig deeper in your efforts to create a strategy that is just right for your company.
When he was still researching and teaching at university in Germany, Professor Hermann Simon undertook to study the landscape of market leaders in exports around the world and in different industries, with the goal of identifying the characteristics of the companies that managed to find their way into that selective group. What he discovered surprised him; it was not the giants he expected who occupied the top spots. It was, instead, predominately middle market companies who remained relatively unknown who were the clear leaders. Many of them came from Germany.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Professor Simon shares key learnings from his work on his subsequent book, Hidden Champions: Lessons from 500 of the World's Best Unknown Companies. The Hidden Champions are different from Evergreen® companies, but they share some important and interesting characteristics. Professor Simon went a step beyond simply articulating his theory on Hidden Champions. Following publication of the book, he left the university and founded his own company which, following the steps he outlined in the book, he has grown into a Hidden Champion itself.
Listen to this talk, consider the characteristics of the Hidden Champions, and see if any of them might help your company.
When he was young, Jeff Chungath was torn between a career in medicine and one in engineering. So he compromised and became a biomedical engineer! With deep, combined clinical and technical expertise, Telligen, the company he leads, helps its clients improve the quality and value of the health care solutions they offer to their employees. Thanks to his training and his natural inclination to think like an engineer, Jeff has created a superb culture of continuous improvement at Teligen, ensuring that feedback loops exist at every level of their work. In turn, this enables them to be nimble and to tackle inefficiencies as soon as they arise.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jeff shares what this looks like at Telligen, and how it has helped them stay ahead of the curve, innovate constantly, and foster an energetic and healthy culture of innovation. A 100% Employee Owned Company, their mission is to improve health outcomes for everyone, and through their careful and precise processes, they are able to make steady and remarkable progress toward this goal.
Listen and be inspired to re-evaluate your internal feedback loops; could they be even better, and drive even better results?
If you are a parent or if you ever watch the news, you are aware that, for years now, the conversation around kids and their mental health has become louder and more urgent. The effects of social media and our internet culture, paired with an increasingly prevalent culture of achievement in and outside of schools and the astoundingly isolating experience period during and after Covid have created a generation that struggles with anxiety, depression, and a host of other challenges.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Dr. Denise Pope, Senior Lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and the co-Founder of Challenge Success, addresses this topic with a focus on potential solutions to this mental health crisis. How can we help our children build resilience and find balance and strong mental health? What practices that have become mainstream are, in fact, damaging to our young people today?
Listen and learn what you can do to make sure your children and other young people in your life are getting what they need to grow into strong, stable adults.
Jeffrey Korzenik is an economist by profession. Outside of work, his passion is furthering the cause of Second Chance Hiring. Those two endeavors are not as disparate as they might seem. Author of Untapped Talent, Jeff has spent many years advocating for what he sees as a solution to two societal and business problems all at once - supporting programs that help identify and place the right people with felony records in the right job for them.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jeff shares that in today’s tight talent market, which demographics tell us will not ease anytime soon, there are nevertheless 19 million people with felony records who struggle mightily to find gainful employment. Many of them never served any time in jail at all, and others have committed to turning their lives around. In the right circumstances, with the right support, they can become stellar employees.
Listen and be inspired to explore the possibility of Second Chance Hiring for your organization.
Scott White, CEO of IGS Energy, has had a front row seat to the complexity of the energy industry and to what happens when shortages occur his whole life; he grew up with a parent who ran a natural gas company. Scott believes that the changes we can expect in the coming years will be even more challenging than the last five decades. As the global demand for energy continues to grow, we will need to grow and expand out capacity to meet it, but it won't happen overnight.
In this Tugboat Institute® Talk, Scott discusses the various means by which our society might allow for a sustainable increase in energy demand while protecting grid resiliency and maintaining affordability. In particular, he shares some specific strategies business leaders can employ to protect their companies against eventual shortages and price volatility.
Listen and be inspired to think about how you and your company can innovate and tackle energy challenges.
When Steve Doerfler and his partner bought out their boss at Metalcraft in 2006, they knew that they would have to work hard and overcome obstacles to help their new company grow and thrive. Many of them, however, both professional and personal, were entirely unexpected and unique.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Steve shares his journey of leadership through the buyout, several years as President, over a decade more as CEO, and now as Chairman. Although it has not been easy, it has shaped him as a leader and, he believes, made him better.
Listen and be inspired to turn your challenges into vehicles to strength and transformation.
For CEOs, and even more so for company founders, the prospect of stepping out of leadership, handing the reins over to your successor, and letting go of the company you have poured your heart into for years can be a challenge. Especially for Evergreen® leaders, who tend to be humble and gritty, their work has been a labor of love; they are so heavily invested in the success of their team, their team’s families, and their company that trusting it will be ok without them is almost akin to watching children go out into the world independently. But it must and will happen to all leaders.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Kris Maynard, founder and CEO of Cathedral Holdings, shares his own experience around this moment in his leadership journey. As a founder, he chose to step into the role of Executive Chair first, to ensure that the transition was smooth and gradual, but the end result is the same; someone else is in charge now. His story will shed light on this process for leaders who are looking toward this transition, and while his lessons learned will not make it easy, they will certainly help prevent surprises and prepare you for some of the more unexpected aspects.
Watch and be inspired to prepare for and thoughtfully shape your own transition out of leadership, when the time comes.
In 2022, at Tugboat Institute® Gathering of Teams, Tugboat CEO Dave Whorton shared a talk entitled On Purpose. At the time, we were approaching our ten-year anniversary and our Evergreen® community had grown and matured a great deal. Everything Dave, and all of us at Tugboat Institute, had learned from our incredible members and friends over the years had confirmed Dave’s thinking about the power of the Evergreen company back in 2013, when he set out to create Tugboat. As he honed his vision and planning for the future of this important group, he reconsidered the Evergreen 7Ps® principles and decided it was time to revise our definition of Purpose.
We have decided to re-share this important talk two years later, because our community continues to grow and our circle of friends and followers is growing quickly as well. Purpose lies at the heart of what it means to be an Evergreen leader and company. Whether you watch this as a re-fresh, as a boost and confirmation for the hard work you are doing leading your company, or as an introduction to the values and thinking that collectively guides us, it will be an inspirational twenty minutes.
Listen and be (re-)inspired by the power of the Evergreen movement.
Evergreen® companies, who value their teams and put People First, believe deeply in the importance of a strong culture. However, the critical value of a strong culture is not simply a matter of faith. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Oliver Staehelin shares concrete data around the specific, strategic advantages a strong culture can give a company. In a world where competition for great talent is not going to ease anytime soon, this is not an optional undertaking for the company that wants to retain a strong team over the long term.
Oliver was an early member of Tugboat Institute, while he was leading the culture assessment company he co-founded with Stanford Professor Charles O’Reilly, Pomello. His early career and all of his subsequent work confirmed for him that culture is not a ‘soft’ topic, nor are its benefits immeasurable.
Listen and be inspired to transform your company’s culture into one of its greatest strategic advantages.
It is rare and challenging for businesses to last beyond the first generation of ownership and leadership, and rarer still for them to last into the third generation and beyond. There are many reasons for this, but a common one is that a company, once it has created its breakout, successful product, will cease to innovate and change. When vigilance on this front diminishes, it is nearly impossible for a company to remain competitive and survive.
When Robert Pasin started work for the very successful company his grandfather had founded, Radio Flyer, he was surprised to discover that his family’s company had fallen prey to just this. Innovation was minimal and as a result, the company was in danger of a decline. He undertook to rebuild a culture of innovation and discipline, and was remarkably successful; Radio Flyer was recently named to the top ten Fast Company list of Most Innovative Companies for 2023.
Listen to Robert’s Tugboat Institute® talk and learn what strategies he employed to turn their biggest weakness into their greatest strength.
Humans understand and remember best through stories. The power of a good story to make a message memorable, meaningful, and impactful cannot be overstated. In your business, therefore, telling the story of your company effectively and well is crucial. This is doubly true for the Evergreen® business, whose story communicates the Purpose that drives their existence and the values that define their team, operations, goals, and culture.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, storytelling strategist Kelly D. Parker addresses the why and the how of great storytelling. She provides us with a deep understanding of the importance of telling your story right, as well as specific strategies to employ as you tackle this important project. Most importantly, especially for the values-driven Evergreen company, she explains that the job of telling your company’s story – clearly and authentically – is not simply the job of the marketing team or even the leadership team, but rather of every person in the organization.
Listen and be inspired to tell your company’s story even more effectively than you are today.
Within any business, although we typically aim for efficiency and ease, we often end up with systems, processes, and norms that create friction. Friction can slow us down and negatively impact both progress and morale. Dr. Robert I. Sutton, Stanford professor and co-author of the recent book, The Friction Project, has studied friction within enterprises and has accumulated significant wisdom around this concept.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Bob explores the different types of friction, the common causes of friction, and some effective remedies for removing bad friction from our work. While not all friction is negative, the majority of it is. Happily, Bob and his co-author Huggy Rao have identified some effective tools and strategies to help find and neutralize it. Contrary to what our instincts tell us, the best approach is not thinking about what we can create or add to combat friction, but rather what we can take away.
Watch and be inspired to look for and eliminate friction within your organization.
Has the age of globalization come to an end? Given current demographic, political, and economic realities, what will the coming decades look like? And importantly, as business leaders, how can we best position ourselves to not only survive, but to succeed in the coming era? Peter Zeihan tackles all of these questions and more in this thought-provoking Tugboat Institute® talk.
Peter Zeihan is a leading geopolitical strategist and the author of The Accidental Superpower, The Absent Superpower, and, most recently, The End of the World is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization. His sometimes uncomfortable predictions for the future are grounded in geopolitical analysis that relies heavily on demographic, political, and economic data. Whether or not you agree with his analysis, he reveals some realities that bear serious consideration as you, as a business leader, prepare for the coming decades.
Listen and consider the myriad factors that will share the political, economic, and social landscape in the decades to come and how they might affect your business.
Change that is intentional and carefully managed over time is essential for the long term survival of a business. Katie Hopkins is the third generation President & CEO of her family’s business, Truck Centers, Inc. (TCI), and she has experienced this reality first hand. After many years of slow and steady growth, TCI entered into a partnership with their primary supplier, Daimler Trucks, and they have seen growth increase a great deal in the last decade. This rapid growth has required an increased focus on change as well.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Katie shares how TCI drove change, in their own business and across the Daimler group, by doubling down on their commitment to Change Management. The initial objective was to make the customer experience more standard across all Daimler locations, but the results reached far beyond this goal. In addition to serving as an example to the other dealerships in the group, above all else, Katie and her team have leaned into Change Management and Continuous Improvement as an effective and highly Evergreen® path to change and growth.
Listen and be inspired to be more intentional about driving and making change in your organization.
At some point, most of us will face the difficult challenge of talking to our parents about their care as they age. The conversation is almost always challenging because it entails the complete reversal of the dynamic of a life-long relationship, wherein the parent is the caregiver and the child is taken care of. But there are ways to make it easier.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Allen Serfas, Co-founder & President of Assistance Home Care, shares his deep personal and professional experience with this difficult conversation. He offers some helpful perspectives and advice for those of us preparing to approach it. It is possible, he believes, to get them the care they need, all while preserving and honoring their role as the parent in the relationship.
Listen and be empowered to help your parents get the care they need without conflict or strife.
Ben and Don MacAskill are the founders and CEO & President of Awesome, the company that owns SmugMug and Flickr, among other brands. They specialize in online tools and platforms for photography and have changed the way photographers store, share, and sell their work. A few years ago, when they purchased Flickr from Yahoo, they discovered something unexpected.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Ben explains that he and Don were aware, of course, that Flickr owned and stored tens of billions of photos. But they soon also discovered that galleries, museums, and archives all over the world had also uploaded tens of millions of rare, unique, and historic photos. The power and impact of the collection struck them as important and absolutely unique, so they created a plan to ensure that these historic images never got lost to humanity. They created the Flickr Foundation. As they build the structure of this Foundation that is still only about a year old, they are focused on the goal of not just preserving the collection, but preserving it for the long term.
Listen and be inspired by this ambitious and generous initiative.
Dr. Peter Boumgarden is a professor at the WashU Olin School of Business. His research focuses on the role of structure- both formally and informally- in shaping the innovation of groups, organizations, and broader network systems. In addition to or perhaps as a byproduct of this work, he has also accumulated a wealth of wisdom about how individuals can be more effective and drive greater impact. Through his research as well as his work consulting and running executive education programs with organizations across sectors, he has developed a research-based set of recommendations for individuals seeking to make better use of their time.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Peter begins by sharing that an average lifetime contains just 4000 weeks. If we want to maximize our impact – on our companies, our families, and our communities – we need to be strategic about how we spend our time. But the bottom line is that we are all different, and we need to find a strategy that works for us. Peter gives us tools to better understand our own productivity, and to think about how we can best tackle the challenge of being more strategic with our limited time.
Listen and think more clearly about how you organize your time.
Dr. Allan Mishra is a leading orthopedic surgeon, an expert in stem-cell research, and a highly respected member of the team at Stanford University Medical Center. He is also the Founder of VyVerse, LLC, through which his program, Vitality Explorers, reaches a growing number of people. Dr. Mishra is deeply interested in human vitality, and in unlocking the keys to living a more vital and energized life.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Dr. Mishra shares his expertise on vitality and helps us understand how and why we should seek to move from exhaustion to energy. Our modern world provides many reasons to feel depleted and tired, but by posing a few simple, pointed questions and sharing research on a few fundamental keys to an energetic boost, Dr. Mishra gives us some tools to improve our energy and, thereby, our lives.
Listen and take steps to become more vital and energize your life.
Silicon Valley is known as the heartland of innovation in business, specifically venture capital and the ‘get big fast’ model of building a company toward a quick and lucrative exit. With its focus on growth over profit and its short-term time horizons, Silicon Valley's traditional business model is quite different then the Evergreen® model. It may, therefore, seem to be a strange place to choose to found and build an Evergreen company. Yet Mac Harman did just that when he launched Balsam Brands over ten years ago.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Mac shares how he not only resisted the pressures and norms of Silicon Valley, but how he was able to use them to his advantage. His combined personal, professional, and educational experiences taught him that he wanted to bootstrap his business rather than raise outside capital. However, he was able to glean some important pearls of wisdom from the standard Silicon Valley model and, paired with his own convictions and vision, build an industry-leading Evergreen company that continues to thrive - right where it started in Silicon Valley.
Listen and be inspired to take the Evergreen path, but leave space for relevant bits of wisdom from business leaders of all sorts.
Stephen M.R. Covey has been a student of leadership his whole life; his father, Stephen R. Covey, was the author of the enormously popular book, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Through his own work, which includes the NYT bestselling The Speed of Trust and more recently, Trust & Inspire: How Truly Great Leaders Unleash Greatness in Others, Stephen has spent his career observing and studying effective leadership and its hallmarks. His insights are profound.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Stephen shares the core of his message from Trust & Inspire. According to Stephen, many of today’s leaders continue to operate in the style of yesterday’s leaders, which he calls Command & Control. However, the world has changed. Employees at all levels are motivated by Purpose and seek personal growth and fulfillment through their work. By tapping into this, each of us has the capacity to be great. The key to guiding us to our own greatness is leadership that leans into the Trust & Inspire style instead.
Watch and understand the power of Trust & Inspire, and take away specific strategies to begin unleashing greatness in your team.
Oscar Gonzalez is the youngest of 13 siblings. When he was very young, His father and a few of his brothers took the first step toward moving the entire family from Mexico to the United States. Through extraordinary perseverance, patience, and hard work, the entire Gonzalez clan eventually landed in Southern California, where the family business, Northgate Markets, was founded.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Oscar shares the story of his father’s dream and the steps, which took years to unfold, that made it a reality. Along with careful planning, dedicated hard work, and an entrepreneurial spirit, Oscar’s family succeeded thanks to their courage. Their deep, shared belief that their dream could become a reality gave them the faith they needed to take a few remarkable risks, or leaps of faith.
Listen and be inspired to take a risk for your dream, fueled by your own deep faith in its promise and possibility.
John Montgomery, Founder & CEO of Bridgeway Capital Management, manages risk for his clients for a living. However, he noticed long ago that even the most audacious business leaders tend to take much smaller risks outside of business. Given the string of human catastrophes he has watched unfold and learned about in his lifetime, he decided to set the bar higher. Bridgeway, and the non-profit they founded and support, aims to end genocide worldwide.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, John shares the work Bridgeway’s foundation has done since its founding to end genocide, first in Africa, and most recently in Ukraine. They were instrumental in making it possible to resume exports of grain from the Ukrainian ports last year, thus protecting millions of people worldwide from famine. Their story proves that even the most audacious goals can be attainable.
Listen and be inspired to take a risk for an audacious purpose.
At Tugboat Institute® Summit 2023, Tugboat members John Gavan and John Garrett joined Mel Gravely on the stage to share the learnings and actions they have taken themselves in the two years since Mel’s first Tugboat Institute talk, What We Can Do Together About Race?
Instead of being directive about what any of us should or should not be doing to help close the rights gap by race, John and John each offered examples of what their first steps were and what progress they have made, in both the personal and professional spheres, on this important topic. John Gavan has directed his efforts through LeaderFlow, an industry-based organization he co-founded to support upcoming, diverse leaders in the field of architecture, engineering, and construction. John Garrett’s efforts started on a more personal level and have led to realizations and new understandings that have and will continue to inform the way he runs his business.
Mel deftly moderates this discussion, which not only offers ideas and inspiration to business leaders looking to learn and to take their first steps, but which also stands as proof that courageous and respectful conversations are possible.
Howard Behar joined Starbucks as President of North America in the very early days of the company. He learned quickly that as a leader, CEO Howard Schultz truly cared for the company’s people, from its employees to its customers.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Howard shares the stories of two men named Jim, a customer and an employee. The stories illustrate what “caring like you mean it” looks like, and how far Howard Schultz was willing to go for his people.
Listen and be inspired to care like you mean it.
James H. Gilmore is the co-Founder of Strategic Horizons, LLC, a thinking group that helps businesses imagine and design new ways to add value to their economic offerings. In 1999, he co-authored the book The Experience Economy with Joseph Pine II. In it, they introduced their groundbreaking framework for understanding the progression of economic value over the course of modern human history. They proposed that each time the defining motor of an economic era shifts, it takes us some time to understand and realize that we are no longer primarily selling our customers what we think we are selling them. In 1999, they proposed that we had progressed from a service economy to an experience economy. Now, Jim tells us, it has shifted again.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jim expounds on his original theory. He then shares his updated thinking on the model. He proposes that today, most of us have caught up with the reality that what we’ve been primarily selling in recent decades is an experience, rather than a good or a service. However, we are lagging again. According to his model, while we may not yet realize it, the focus of our businesses has again shifted; we are now in a transformation economy.
Listen and understand what this might look like in your industry and company, and how you need to adjust your strategy to keep current.
In her native Kentucky, the bourbon created by Carrie Van Winkle Greener’s great-grandfather, Pappy Van Winkle, is legend. Carrie’s older brother stepped into the family business, the Old Rip Van Winkle Distillery, at the start of his career but Carrie and her two sisters, who are triplets, sought their own opportunities elsewhere. Until, that is, they perceived an opportunity to start a new business, and at the same time, enhance the family’s historic brand.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Carrie shares the story of Pappy Van Winkle Bourbon and of the founding of her own company, Pappy & Company. As she and her sisters spun this company off the family brand, she learned powerful lessons about the importance of family harmony, clarity of brand identity, and entrepreneurship.
Listen and be inspired to see opportunities not just within, but also alongside of, your family business.
Dr. Madeline Levine is co-Founder of Challenge Success and a leading psychologist who has focused a great deal of her work on the mental health and challenges of young people coming of age in our modern society. In particular, in her book The Price of Privilege, she addressed a group that has been largely dismissed as being ‘fine,’ but that is not, in fact, free from challenges: the children of wealthy families.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Dr. Levine focuses on a skill that we all now accept as critical to survival in the modern world: resilience. As parents of children and as leaders of organizations, what can we do to foster this all-important skill in those we care about?
Listen and gain confidence as you strive to support and inspire resilience in your children, your employees, and yourself.
Hollingsworth & Vose is the oldest company in Tugboat Institute® membership; they were founded nearly 300 years ago. In their early days, they made paper for customers including Ben Franklin and Paul Revere. Today, they are the leading producer of filtration systems for energy and other purposes, and their customers include Tesla and Elon Musk. It goes without saying that to survive such a journey, innovation must be the order of the day.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, the 7th generation leader of Hollingsworth & Vose, Val Hollingsworth, shares highlights from his family’s company’s incredible journey. He also gives us insight into the spirit of innovation that has driven the company since its founding, and allowed it to remain relevant and a market-leader through sweeping changes to every aspect of our world.
Listen and be inspired to up your game on the innovation front and ensure your survival for 100 years or more.
At Tugboat Institute® Summit 2023, where we celebrated our ten year anniversary, CEO Dave Whorton shared a talk entitled On Time. Dave first set the context of human activity in the broad span of life on our planet; as a species, we have been around for an extremely short time. Then he zeroed in on the timeframe of business, since it truly came to exist. In the past couple centuries, as the pace of change and progress have accelerated, the timeframe of the Evergreen® company stands out as unique.
For a company with outside investors and owners, such as public companies and Venture Capital and Private Equity backed companies, try as they might, they are beholden to a very short timeframe, as they must, over and over, ‘make the quarter.’ An Evergreen company, by contrast, can grow slowly, and therefore adhere to much longer timeframes. This long term mindset allows for the compounding not just of capital, but also culture, customer base, and more. Seen through this lens, time stands out as a primary strategic advantage of the Evergreen company.
Listen and learn how and why time is on the Evergreens’ side.
Before joining the team at Tugboat Institute®, Dr. Gary Kunkle spent many years consulting with companies, in the United States and abroad, on growth. Following a stint at KPMG and then as the leader of his own company in the Netherlands, Gary returned to the US to earn his PhD. He wanted to understand what truly drove company growth, since his experience had led him to believe the conventional wisdom had it wrong.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Gary tackles several of the most pervasive myths around company growth - the factors that are most often trumpeted as the keys to successful growth but that have not, in his vast experience, proven to be true. His work is grounded in thorough and exhaustive data, and as he debunks each myth, he offers an alternative truth that can help get you on the path to sustained Paced Growth.
Listen and learn how to tweak your strategy to increase your chances of successful, long-term growth.
Ann Rhoades has made her career at values-led organizations. She served as Chief People Officer at Southwest Airlines, then as Co-founder of JetBlue, and now PRES of People Ink. Through all of this work, she has pioneered the shift in our modern perception of the role of Human Resources in a company, and the importance of people to any organization.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Ann shares her clear thinking about how great, values-led organizations function, the ways in which they put People First, and why this work is so central to their success.
Listen and be inspired to take care of your teams and stay committed to your values throughout your company.
Jim Weddle worked at Edward Jones for 43 years, and served as Managing Partner from 2009 to 2018. During his time with the firm, he worked with Peter Drucker, creator of the Drucker Principles and author of The Effective Executive, as both an advisor and a client. Between lessons learned from his time spent with Drucker and his own learnings as leader of a large Evergreen® company, Jim has accumulated significant wisdom.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jim shares the core of Drucker’s lessons for executives, as well as his own. Among his key takeaways, he advises leaders that in order to be an “effective executive,” one must be aware that one’s time tends to belong to others, and therefore it is critical to stop managing and start leading–to empower the team to do the work that they are trained to do and in which they excel.
Listen and be inspired to find new ways to increase your effectiveness.
Tugboat Institute® member Don MacAskill is the CEO & Chief Geek of Awesome, which owns the brands SmugMug and Flickr. Don founded SmugMug with his brother, Ben, and together they bootstrapped their online photo sharing company, purchased Flickr from Yahoo, and built their company into an industry leader. All this from the heart of Silicon Valley and in the highly competitive and fast-paced tech industry. Fast and frequent innovation is critical to survival in this industry, especially when you are self-funded and competing against giants like Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Don shares his approach to innovation. Awesome exists in an environment where the pressure to adopt new ideas, one after the other, and stay ahead of the curve is intense, so he has found that it’s important to have some clear guide rails, to help them avoid falling into the ‘innovation trop’ and following fads that do not last.
Listen and be inspired by Don’s insightful and effective take on innovation.
O.C. Tanner is a 95 year old family business in Salt Lake City, Utah. Not only are they an Evergreen® company with a deeply People First orientation, their entire business model exists to find ways to help other companies honor and support their employees and customers. They started making trophies, rings, and plaques to reward graduates and excellence in the workplace, and have innovated their way to becoming a market-leading employee and customer appreciation software and consulting company.
Dave Petersen has been with this remarkable company for 40 years and CEO since 2008. In this Tugboat Institute® Fireside Chat with Dave Whorton, Dave shares his remarkable personal journey toward leadership of O.C. Tanner. O.C. Tanner’s remains guided by the founder, Obert Tanner’s, vision and plan, and Dave shares how that vision helped him guide the company through a great many remarkable re-inventions of itself.
Listen and learn about the journey of this impressive leader and the unique and impressive, Evergreen company he leads.
Bobby Jenkins is President & CEO of ABC Home & Commercial Services, in Austin, TX. He is also deeply involved with the local Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber of Commerce in Austin, like so many others, is at the center of all that makes Austin a wonderful place to live and do business, including a great many programs and initiatives that are supported by and that can support local companies.
In this short Tugboat Institute® talk, Bobby encourages Evergreen® business leaders to consider getting involved with their local Chambers. He shares some examples from his own experience and highlights the fact that both Chambers of Commerce and Evergreen companies share a common goal: to make their communities better places. In addition, he shares some of the ways in which doing good is also good business.
Listen and be inspired to partner with your local Chamber of Commerce.
Tugboat Institute® member Brad Cleveland is a global expert in customer strategy and management. His recent book, Leading the Customer Experience, along with his LinkedIn Learning Courses and numerous articles, have been translated into a dozen languages. He is a sought after speaker and consultant worldwide.
When Brad was a young man, he had the opportunity to speak with W. Edwards Deming, who gave him a piece of profound advice: drive out the fear! Many years later, Brad has come to fully appreciate the role that fear can play in limiting performance and success in an organization. In this short Tugboat Institute talk, he reminds us how important it is to create a culture in our businesses where everyone - from the customer to the employee to the CEO - can operate free of fear.
Listen and be emboldened to help drive out the fear in your organization.
W. Edwards Deming is universally recognized as one of the fathers of Total Quality Management. His groundbreaking work helped numerous Japanese companies, with whom he consulted in the period following WWII, improve their efficiency and performance and surge onto the world scene as a formidable business competitor in the 1970s and 1980s. American companies caught on eventually, and the Deming Philosophy that he created, with its 14 principles, serves as a guide for a great many companies to this day.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, W. Edwards Deming’s grandson, Kevin Cahill, shares his grandfather’s philosophy and some of its central tenets, which happen to align nicely with the Evergreen 7Ps® principles, in particular People First. Today, Kevin is the Executive Director of the Deming Institute and a champion for his grandfather's important and highly relevant work.
Listen and learn about Deming's work and the incredible People First insights that helped him advise some of the world’s largest companies on their way to becoming giants in their industries.
It is no secret that business leaders and leaders of all sorts are experiencing high levels of burnout and stress, especially coming off the last extremely challenging few years. Most leaders are aware, at least on some level, of the importance of self-care, yet many struggle to turn that understanding into concrete action. Ryan Redman, Founder and Executive Director of the Flourish Foundation, proposes a way to think about this and some steps that may help you get started.
Although many of us have predisposed notions of what the word “guru” means, in this short Tugboat Institute® talk, Ryan suggests a different way to think about the term. He explores the essence of the guru, which means “weighty” in Sanskrit, and he suggests methods for working towards becoming a guru. He further posits that this work will help us become better leaders, better care for our teams and ourselves, and create more good in our communities and the world.
Listen and be inspired to take some simple, concrete steps toward becoming a guru and finding stability and strength.
Early in his career, the dental group Samson Liu worked for sold to Private Equity (PE). He stayed on for 18 years, as the company was sold and re-sold over and over again. Eventually, it became clear that the practices and mindsets of the PE model were not in line with Samson’s values, so he left to start his own practice, SOH Dental.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Samson shares how he took what he learned from the PE playbook and infused it with his own Evergreen® beliefs to create a new model for acquisitions. This “hybrid model” allowed him to build a business that is People First, that will always be Private, and that is in line with his values. His endeavor has been remarkably successful.
Listen and hear a great example of how values can be at the center of a successful business, and how Evergreen is not only a viable, but a powerful alternative to the standard, Private Equity model.
Murray Hidary began his career as a tech entrepreneur, before a personal tragedy redirected his focus back to music, a lifelong passion. His work using music to heal and improve his own mindset led him to found his current company, MindTravel. MindTravel invites listeners to immerse themselves in his original piano compositions, either alone, with a group, or in nature, to learn to find peace in every moment and connect with the stillness and calm that help us see clearly, heal, and succeed.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Murray shares his perspective on creativity, which is not a gift granted to a lucky few, but rather which lives in all of us. Following his short talk, Murray invites us to sit back and lose ourselves, for a short time, in music as he performs live on our stage.
Listen and be inspired to connect with your own creativity and to seek and find peace as a source of strength.
Anese Cavanaugh is the Founder and CEO of Active Choices, Inc., creator of the IEP Method, and the author of numerous books. The many tools she has developed and honed are all aimed at achieving the same goal; helping leaders take better care of themselves so they can build better companies, with cultures that thrive, and that create impact in the world.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Anese shares her considerable wisdom on this topic and introduces us to the Intentional Energetic Presence (IEP) Method. She invites Evergreen® leaders, who already understand the importance of putting People First, to direct their care not only toward their families, employees, and communities, but also toward themselves.
Listen and be inspired to take care of yourself, and make it possible to increase your impact in the world.
Tugboat Institute® member Dave Thrasher grew up watching his father found and build a company. When it came time for him to step into leadership, Dave was ready to take what his father had built and scale it. In the end, he founded his own offshoot of his father’s Evergreen® company, which is run today by his brother Dan, and he started the work of scaling, always with an eye to maintaining his core Evergreen values.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Dave shares his learning about the ways Evergreen companies can scale successfully. Many of them are the strategies used widely by companies of all types, but he has modified where necessary to ensure that as he scales, his growing company stays fully aligned with the 7Ps principles and the Evergreen mindset. He has had astounding success.
Listen and be inspired to explore new growth opportunities in an Evergreen way.
Tugboat Institute® member Dave Thrasher grew up watching his father found and build a company. When it came time for him to step into leadership, Dave was ready to take what his father had built and scale it. In the end, he founded his own offshoot of his father’s Evergreen® company, which is run today by his brother Dan, and he started the work of scaling, always with an eye to maintaining his core Evergreen values.
In this Tugboat Institute talk, Dave shares his learning about the ways Evergreen companies can scale successfully. Many of them are the strategies used widely by companies of all types, but he has modified where necessary to ensure that as he scales, his growing company stays fully aligned with the 7Ps principles and the Evergreen mindset. He has had astounding success.
Listen and be inspired to explore new growth opportunities in an Evergreen way.
In this candid conversation, Tugboat Institute® Founder & CEO Dave Whorton and Tom Peters, discuss the eight main principles of Tom’s seminal book, In Search of Excellence. They explore the ways in which Tom’s thinking has evolved in the years since its publication. All of the eight People First principles remain relevant and valuable, and Tom introduces some important new ideas, including honoring the importance of women and introverts in leadership.
As a thinker and a leader, Tom’s work is deeply Evergreen®. In this Tugboat Institute talk, Tom and Dave confirm the extent to which the path to excellence is grounded in the people who do the work, at every level of the company. Therefore, honoring and taking care of those people must be a top priority.
Listen and be inspired by the wisdom and wit of this great thinker and leader.
The conversation about race in our society is difficult but it is extremely important. Tugboat Institute® member Mel Gravely, CEO of TriVersity Construction, has not only spent a lot of time thinking about it, he has written a book about it. In 2021, he shared lessons and insights from his book, Dear White Friend: The Realities of Race, the Power of Relationships, and Our Path to Equity, at our Tugboat Institute Summit. We asked him to give us an update this year.
In this short Tugboat Institute talk, Mel reminds us that the work to be done on this front is going to take a long time. We need to renew our commitment to focus on it not just today, but repeatedly going forward. He shares his own priorities and plans to stay engaged.
Listen and be inspired to do the same.
When the artisan jewelers at James Avery create their pieces, they aim to make keepsakes that are imbued with meaning and that will be cherished by customers for a lifetime, if not more. Throughout Texas and beyond, their jewelry is often passed down from generation to generation. This deeply Evergreen® company is beloved by customers and employees alike.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, CEO John McCullough shares some history of this remarkable company, from its humble beginnings to today. In addition, he shares the reasons why the company has gradually moved toward vertical integration. Although it comes with certain costs and limitations, vertical integration has afforded them a level of independence and agility that has allowed them to remain strong in the face of recent crises, and ultimately, to serve their community better.
Listen and be inspired by the history and learnings of this profoundly People First and Purpose driven company.
Dr. Dennis Jaffe has spent his career working with and advising family enterprises. A Senior Research Fellow at BanyanGlobal, he is widely considered to be one of the original architects of the field of family enterprise consulting.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Dr. Jaffe discusses the challenges that may arise when family business leaders start to imagine their children and grandchildren succeeding them. The questions that surround preparing the next generation to step into leadership are often clouded by concern over differences between the generations, but Dr. Jaffe invites us to consider the advantages, rather than the problems, these differences create.
Listen and be inspired to establish clear and open communication with your children about what the future, and their future in your business, might look like.
John Garrett is Founder & CEO of Community Impact Newspaper, an Evergreen® company in Pflugerville, Texas. He has discovered that towns and cities value companies that bring good into their communities, and that, in fact, they are often willing to offer incredible incentives through economic development deals.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, John shares how his own company benefited from an economic development deal, as well as some of the types of incentives that can be available. He encourages leaders of Evergreen companies to pursue these deals, and offers advice on how to prepare to step into those conversations.
Listen and be inspired to look for opportunities in your own community, or in a community you are considering entering.
Under the leadership of CEO Lisa Ingram, White Castle has entered into an era of significant product innovation and it is thriving. In order to keep its vast, devoted customer base happy by preserving what it loves about White Castle and yet stay relevant for future generations, Lisa has leaned on her best source of new ideas: her employees and her customers.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Lisa shares how her profoundly People First orientation has allowed her to achieve the impressive feat of balancing a love for the past with a willingness to step into the future.
Watch and be inspired by the rich and impressive history of this 100 year old Evergreen® company.
Initially, it might sound surprising to bring love into a discussion of business. But in this Tugboat Institute® talk, In Time Tec CEO Jeet Kumar makes a case for putting love at the center of your leadership style.
Jeet takes us through the lessons he learned as a child and how he came to believe in the importance of showing love. Then he shares his personal strategies for showing love to his team. Through his clear and powerful talk, Jeet makes this initially surprising idea logical, persuasive, and even evident.
Listen and be inspired to infuse your leadership style with love and watch your team thrive.
As the sixth Managing Partner of Edward Jones and the first woman to lead the company, Penny Pennington is an exemplary Evergreen® leader. In this Fireside Chat with Dave Whorton, she opens up about her professional journey and the history of leadership at Edward Jones.
She was drawn to Edward Jones because she recognized the values that were instilled in her by her parents, who were themselves leaders: integrity, resolve, telling the truth, and treating people right.
Listen and be inspired by Penny’s leadership journey and her deeply Evergreen perspective on her business and its role in the many communities it touches.
Rich Ledbetter, COO of Guarantee Electrical, has always drawn inspiration from Muhammed Ali. As a business leader, he has drawn inspiration from some of the greats as well, including Jim Collins, Simon Sinek, and Pat Lencioni. But leaders must ultimately take all of their learning, extract the lessons that fit the best, and craft their own, individual leadership philosophy. Rich has done this, and the result is what he calls his Simple Tools.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Rich shares the lessons that have impacted him the most and the thinking that went into creating his Simple Tools. At the foundation of it all is trust.
Listen and be inspired by the story of the birth of this Evergreen® philosophy of leadership.
Today, many companies claim to be purpose-driven. Some are private and Evergreen® companies, but others are public or private equity or venture capital backed. It is true that many companies articulate and advertise a noble purpose, but how often is it genuine?
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, CEO Dave Whorton examines this claim by so many and asks the question, can a company that is not private truly be purpose-driven? The resounding answer is no.
Listen and understand how Purpose partners with Private to sit at the heart of the Evergreen movement.
A third generation CEO of a family company enjoys certain advantages, but also faces certain challenges. Kristi Tacony Humes learned this first hand when she became CEO of Tacony Corporation.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Kristi shares her learnings, some advice for CEOs in a similar situation, and some good stories! Above all else, she has learned that it is critical to keep asking questions and to fix things…before they are broken!
Listen and learn more about the advantages and the challenges of being the leader of a family business.
Dr. David Bradford’s most recent book is entitled Connect: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues. The book explains how honesty can, when approached with care and respect, serve to deepen and strengthen relationships rather than strain them.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Dr. David Bradford shares the model that he has created to help us understand how to be honest without hurting one another’s feelings and damaging relationships. He calls it “The Net.”
Listen and learn about The Net and the ways in which it can help you build stronger relationships in every area of your life.
Clase Azul México began as a tequila company, and is now growing into México’s first luxury house. As Founder and CEO Arturo Lomeli built his Evergreen® company, he never lost sight of his purpose: to share and celebrate the magic of Mexican culture. In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Arturo shares the story of the birth and growth of Clase Azul, the many initiatives they sponsor in their communities, and his thinking about and understanding of the luxury industry.
Listen and be inspired to be ambitious and to be a force for good in your own community.
Bryan Papé founded MiiR after surviving a life-threatening ski accident. He was determined to build and scale a company that was grounded in generosity and innovation, and he wanted to do it without private equity or venture capital. Despite being repeatedly told it couldn’t be done, Bryan made it happen. In this podcast, Bryan shares the story of the creation of MiiR as well as the purpose and beliefs that keep driving him and his team as MiiR grows and thrives.
David Holmes, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Character Collaborative, believes that character is destiny. His organization works to elevate the role of character in college admissions. According to study after study, character, rather than a test score, is the strongest predictor of long-term success in college and in life.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, David argues that we need to prioritize instilling character in our children and that we should value it greatly in our businesses as well. Our world has become fractured and divided, and only through a focus on character can we find our way back to a civil and thriving society.
Listen and be inspired to consider character, in your life and in your work.
Susie Quesada, President of Ramar Foods, was a middle school teacher before stepping into leadership of her family’s Filipino Evergreen® food product business, Ramar Foods. As she has led and grown the company, she has approached leadership as she did teaching—with an intentional, paced focus on listening, educating, and creating effective processes for growth and development.
In this talk from Tugboat Institute® Summit 2021, Susie describes how her experience as an educator is reflected in her commitment to creating culture, striving for effective collaboration, and making the most of every “teachable moment” to improve the company and train her team.
Listen and be inspired by this unique and very Evergreen® lens on leadership.
Lester Thornhill, President and CEO of Life’s Abundance, is planting trees in Senegal, Africa. Originally, he was inspired by his desire to find a path to carbon neutrality for his Evergreen® company. But when he discovered the organization Trees for the Future, he realized he could do more. Now he is helping create Forest Gardens, which benefit the earth and the surrounding communities in a great many ways. Listen to Lester’s podcast from Tugboat Institute® Summit 2021 and learn more about this initiative and about Forest Gardens.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, David Eichhorn, CEO of NISA Investment Advisors, examines the Paradox of Growth in business. As successful businesses mature, they grow, but at a certain point, the growth leads to a size which breeds complexity, which can then kill growth. How can a CEO or Founder break this cycle?
David has spent considerable time and energy examining this paradox as it relates to his Evergreen® company. As a leader, he has found success in resolving it by implementing the Bain Micro-battle System®. He has managed to meet his goals for growth and reap the benefits of size without being derailed by growth-inflicted pain points that emerge as the organization becomes more complex.
Listen and learn how to make the size of your business an asset in innovation—not an anchor.
Johnny Bench played for the Cincinnati Reds for 17 years. He was a hero to his fans and a star of the game. In his last game before he retired, in 1983, he hit a home run. He was at the top of his game. Steve Shifman was there, and he never forgot it. Steve is a Reds fan and the former CEO and current Executive Chairman of the Board of Michelman. He learned a lot from Johnny Bench. As he felt the end of his career as CEO coming onto the horizon, he took a page from Johnny’s book - go out on top. In this humorous Tugboat Institute® talk, Steve shares his experience and his advice around stepping into a CEO transition with grace, with hope, and with a solid plan. He identifies the key factors that will ensure it is as smooth as possible. As he plans to hand over the reins of Michelman, he feels that he has set the stage for a successful transition and is excited for his next chapter.
Listen and be inspired to make a succession plan for your Evergreen® company.
What are the key characteristics and practices of companies that share space on the touted “best to work for” lists? How do you craft a culture to support and develop your team, sustain your company’s growth, and make a difference in your community? How does a thriving business support inclusivity today? In this talk from Tugboat Institute® Summit 2021, Dave Petersen, President and CEO of O.C. Tanner, shares his insight into these key questions. As the Evergreen® leader of a company dedicated to creating employee recognition and reward solutions that help cultures thrive, which is itself repeatedly recognized as a Best Company to Work For®, Dave has unique insight into this topic. This presentation offers valuable wisdom around culture and challenges to today’s leaders as they consider how their companies can create a positive and lasting impact for their employees and the communities they serve.
Listen and be inspired to foster a positive culture in your Evergreen company.
In 2005, Conni Reed left a 16-year corporate career to launch her company, Consuela. In the wake of what she describes as “an early mid-life crisis,” Conni felt called to live an authentic, meaningful life and build a business that would make a difference in the lives of women and Mexican artisans. In the years since, she has poured her passion and creativity into Consuela, a handbag and accessories company based in Texas that vibrantly reflects the joy and beauty–her “magic”– she wants to contribute to the world.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Conni shares her story of personal and professional Perseverance – a journey that led to her current success and her ongoing mission to support and celebrate women who impact the world in positive ways.
Listen and be inspired by this Evergreen® story of Purpose and passion.
Strong Roots & Strong Branches—The Power Of Diversification
Michael Spraggins, CEO of Spraggins, Inc., is a great admirer of the Southern Live Oak tree. According to Michael, the roots of the Southern Live Oak are wide and deep, and when you prune its branches the tree gets stronger. For Michael this tree is the ideal metaphor for his Florida based construction supply business.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Michael shares how he built a diversified, global company through the hard-earned life lessons that only failure can produce. Over time and by strategically “pruning” his vision of expansion, Michael grew a thriving family owned company that allowed him to nurture some other branches in his life—being a dad to his daughters and a developing the nonprofit African healthcare organization, LifeNet International.
Listen and be inspired by this Evergreen® story of professional and personal growth.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast episode you meet F.K. Day—a Chicago businessman, entrepreneur and humanitarian. In 1987, with a passion for biking and innovation, F.K. and his brother Stan founded SRAM, a bicycle component supplier.
That was only the beginning for FK.
Moved by the 2004 tsunami disaster in Indonesia, F.K. was inspired to do more than send a check. Using Pragmatic Innovation, he took what he knew about high-end bikes and created an efficient, scalable model for producing low-cost, rugged bikes. The end result is World Bicycle Relief, a nonprofit that provides bicycles to students, health-care workers and families in Africa, South America and Southeast Asia.
Be an Evergreen® leader. Do something radical to make the world a better place.
Understanding Gen Z—The New Workforce Generation
Generation Z are popularly characterized as coddled, irresponsible, addicted to tech, naïve, narcissistic and unprepared for adulthood. They also ARE and WILL BE entering the workforce for the next decade.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Roberta Katz, Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) at Stanford University, deconstructs some of the common stereotypes assigned to this misunderstood demographic. Utilizing findings from three years of research for her book, Gen Z, Explained, Roberta provides scientific insight into the social, cultural and historical determinants that have shaped this next wave of workers.
Listen and learn how to open up the lines of communication between the generations.
Great products are not enough.
With 24-7 access to the internet, customers expect and demand immediate engagement. Customer service is key to business success.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Brad Cleveland, one of the world’s foremost experts on customer management and a consultant to Fortune 500 companies, contends that quality customer care is the most powerful differentiator in business. Whether you are a mom-and-pop shop or a global enterprise, technology has leveled the playing field so that any size business can deliver five-star service to their customers when they need it the most.
Be an Evergreen® leader. Listen, learn and engage.
Hire for skills, not for degrees.
In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Steven C. Preston, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International, shares how the nonprofit is providing leading edge workforce skills and career path mapping to individuals who lack the traditional educational degrees and certifications.
According to Steven, now is the time for business leaders to close the opportunity gap and consider talented employee candidates outside of their standard hiring practices. Fulfilling work can transform a life, a family and your company’s bottom line.
Be inspired to make a difference.
“You are the only thing that can make your work unique,” says celebrated portrait photographer, John Keatley. John should know. He sees this truism every day in his work.
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, John tackles a tough topic—the importance of being authentic in order to do your best work. According to John, you need to know yourself and incorporate it into what you do. During this talk John shares how he made this breakthrough in his personal and professional life—the mistakes and the lessons learned that are relevant to anyone in any profession.
What if you told an entire 3rd grade class that a college degree was expected? What if you also told those same 3rd graders that they did not have to pay for that college education—meaning if they worked hard, graduated high school and got accepted to college, they would receive a college education for free. What would they do? And who could make that promise?
In this Tugboat Institute® podcast, Tom Rosztoczy, President and CEO of Stotz Equipment, shares how he and his wife established The College Promise program—transforming generations of students and their families. Listen and be inspired by the life-changing results.
This Tugboat Institute® podcast spotlights Stella Ma—entrepreneur, educator and CEO. With a vision to inspire children to learn about the world, Stella and her business partner, Amy Norman, launched Little Passports in 2009. Her passion to make travel accessible, geography fun and spark the imagination of children has created a thriving education subscription business and household brand name that continues to innovate. In her Tugboat Institute talk, Ma reveals the five strategies that allowed her company to remain private and profitable. Listen, learn and be inspired.
Pushing your sales territory outward is key for sustained business growth. But it’s not as easy as it sounds. Each market entry presents its own set of unique complexities. The decisions you make to navigate those challenges will determine your ROI in that territory.
In this podcast from Tugboat Institute®, Gary Kunkle, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin–Madison and Founder of Outlier LLC, discusses the common tactics that trip up companies considering expansion into new markets—sharing hard-earned insight based on his ongoing academic research and 38 years of hands-on experience in the international marketplace.
Be an Evergreen® leader. Consider entry into new markets—local or global—to spark business growth.
Be a better leader.
Retired Commander Rorke Denver ran every phase of training for the U.S. Navy SEALs and led special-forces missions in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and other international hot spots. He also wrote two New York Times bestselling books based on his extensive military experience.
In this Tugboat Institute podcast, Rorke shares two significant leadership lessons that have served him well in his military and civilian life—constantly improve your position and always reach for an extra inch.
How can my business be an effective family enterprise if my children do not want to be a part of it? Who will be the next generation of owners?
In this podcast from Tugboat Institute®, Jennifer Pendergast—eminent thought leader and Executive Director of the John L. Ward Center for Family Enterprises at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University—deconstructs the challenges faced by family owned businesses and shares practical strategies for successful leadership transitions and governance.
Be an Evergreen® leader. Learn how to create a leading company that lasts beyond your lifetime.
Central States Manufacturing started in 1988 as a small plant in Rogers, Arkansas. Today the company produces metal roofing and siding for thousands of customers from 10 locations across the country. It is also 100% employee owned.
John Williams, VP of Sales & Marketing, shared with the Tugboat Institute® in 2016 the keys to the company's tremendous success—a strict adherence to open-book management (aka the Great Game of Business), rigorous accountability, and a commitment to putting their people first. Although John has retired from CSM, his words and insights are still relevant for business leaders and Evergreen® CEOs dedicated to building leading and lasting companies.
Get Big Fast vs. Evergreen—Which is the best fit for your business?
This episode features Tugboat Institute® CEO Dave Whorton. When Dave was recruited by the legendary John Doerr to work for Kleiner Perkins in 1997 he learned the original venture capital (VC) “playbook”—a strategy focused on reaching profitability and sustained growth. At the same time, Doerr and other partners were selectively exercising a new playbook sparked by the historic public offering of Netscape. Venture capital was entering a new era—Get Big Fast.
In this talk from Tugboat Institute®, Dave shares his insider perspective on this “moment of divergence” and how this seismic shift in VC investment shaped the way companies are built, scaled, financed and exited. Dave also presents the alternative Evergreen® business model embraced by leaders committed to private ownership, purpose and growing profitable companies that last 100 years.
There is more than one way to business success. Take a moment to listen and determine which path fits your journey.
This episode features John Garrett, CEO of Community Impact Newspaper. According to John, “Print ain't dead, ” and he should know.
An experienced newspaper executive, John could see where the industry was headed but he also saw a huge need. Despite living in a digitized world with content just a click away, John saw that people were yearning to know what was happening in their own backyards. So in 2005, John and his wife, Jennifer, launched the first edition of Community Impact Newspaper in their hometown of Pflugerville, Texas.
Today there are 34 print editions of this newspaper that cover 59 communities in Texas, Tennessee and Arizona. These free publications have a combined total circulation of 2.5 million readers and are all driven by local journalists reporting on stories that matter to their neighbors.
In this Tugboat Institute® 2016 talk, John enthusiastically shares how he built this successful Evergreen® company in the shadow of 24-hour cable news channels and a public addicted to social media news feeds.
Listen and be inspired by this modern-day David & Goliath story.
What defines an effective workplace? Can productive work only occur in the office?
In this podcast from Tugboat Institute®, Lisa Picard, President and CEO of EQ Office, discusses the challenges that are facing employers and employees in the modern workplace. As the leader of a commercial real estate company with a mission to design spaces to maximize human potential, Lisa shares the 4 vital components necessary to achieve effective work and the current ideas surrounding a return-to-the-office strategy.
Listen and learn how to create a thriving environment for you and your employees.
Why does this almost 100-year-old company still act like a scrappy startup?
It was 2009. The financial crisis was in full swing and consumer spending had dropped off a cliff. Torani, a family-owned syrup company established in 1925, had been growing at 25% per year for over 18+ years. CEO Melanie Dulbecco was now facing growth rate projections of 4% and stiff competition from giant corporations coming into the product category.
So this self-professed group process geek committed to a yearlong “Learning Journey” with her management team. The idea was to meet with and learn from innovative companies, thought leaders, business partners and their customers. The result was a trip of transformation—for Torani and the team.
In this Tugboat Institute® 2016 talk, Melanie shares the insights and guiding principles from that year of discovery—timeless lessons for Evergreen® leaders dedicated to building leading and lasting companies.
This episode features Bart Ricketts, CEO of Lease Crutcher Lewis. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Bart shares how this Pacific Northwest construction company established in 1886 continues to innovate through employee led improvement programs, paced growth and an environment that cultivates a diversity of thought and experience.
Learn how this Evergreen® company is building towards its next 100 years in business.
This episode features Grant Gregory, the retired chairman of Deloitte & Touche and founder of DoubleClick. In his Tugboat Institute® talk, Grant describes how Don Clifton, his longtime mentor and the creator of StrengthsFinder, taught him the principles of positive psychology and the practice of strengths-based leadership that allowed him to expertly recruit and develop talent across complex organizations.
Listen in and learn how to find, engage and cultivate employees that will thrive and excel in your business.
As a film producer and President of Flashlight Films, Allyn Stewart, has mastered the process of developing compelling stories and translating them into captivating films. In this talk from Tugboat Institute®, Allyn shares her journey through Hollywood and her philosophy that true excellence in storytelling comes from the creator’s unwavering commitment and unshakable belief in the story they want to tell. According to Allyn, story is EVERYTHING–whether it’s a movie, a product or a service.
How do I use the wealth that I have created? What should I give my children? What will be my legacy – in business and life?
In this Tugboat Institute® talk from 2016, Dennis Jaffe of Wise Counsel Research, answers these questions and more. As part of a special study, Dennis spent years interviewing members of family-owned companies that generate great wealth, while also making a difference the world.
Learn the insider wisdom and best practices that have allowed these businesses and families to thrive over multiple generations.
In this episode you will meet Mel Gravely, CEO of TriVersity Construction Company based in Cincinnati, Ohio.
As a successful black business leader, Mel admits to sidestepping the topic of race – especially with his white friends and colleagues. However with the civil unrest and waves of protests that occurred in the summer of 2020, Mel could no longer ignore the topic.
In her Tugboat Institute Summit 2016 talk, Founder Amy Simmons, shares her passion for creating an empowered culture built on training, transparency, and financial literacy. With a workforce full of teammates ranging in age from 16 - 20 years old, Amy is dedicated to educating the next generation of business leaders and showing them, by example, the powerful impact of an Evergreen company.
In this presentation to Tugboat Institute in 2021, Brad offers his insights on customer expectations in today’s world, key ways to improve service interactions and guidance on how to successfully utilize the customer experience to grow your business. We hope you enjoy the practical advice along with the lessons learned by some of the largest companies in the United States.
In this podcast, Jack shares his story of creating and playing "The Game" along with with his unwavering belief that, "The best, most efficient, most profitable way to operate a business is to educate everyone on the business, give them a voice in saying how the company is run and provide them a stake in the financial outcome, good or bad." Enjoy.
Lester Thornhill, CEO of Life’s Abundance, approached the challenge of the COVID-19 pandemic with a commitment to continuous improvement. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Lester shares his story of opportunistic innovation through the pandemic, offering a compelling case for seizing upon moments of challenge to strengthen the team and the company for the long term.
In the 1950s, Earl and Carol Holding moved to the Wyoming desert to take over a failing gas station/motel/cafe. That was the first step toward building what Tim Silva calls an "incredible empire" that includes Sun Valley Resort, the home base for Tugboat Summit and Sinclair Oil Corp. Silva, the resort's general manager, says the Holding family used core Evergreen principles to grow their assets.
Robyn Sue has spent the last 13 years (since 2007!) conceiving of and developing Smitten Ice Cream. In her ‘prior life’, she was a management consultant in the U.S. and Europe and became known for her ability to invent new ways of solving problems. In her Tugboat Institute Summit 2016 talk, Fisher breaks down what matters most in building her Evergreen business: creating joy for employees and customers, and committing unwaveringly to being the best.
In today's episode, you'll meet Carrie Freeman Parsons, Chairman of the Board at Freeman Company. Freeman is a global event management company. Carrie shares with us about her lack of skills when assuming her first managing role within Freeman. This lead to her prioritizing leadership development and specifically training new managers with their needed "tools." Carrie noted that it's essential for leaders who build companies to align with the Evergreen 7Ps® principles.
Viesturs has been climbing mountains for almost 40 years. In that time, he has climbed all of the world's 8,000-plus-meter summits — 14 in total — without using oxygen tanks. Viesturs embodies one of the most important elements of an Evergreen entrepreneur: perseverance. It took Viesturs 21 attempts to complete his 14-summit bucket list. For each of those climbs, he vowed not to break the rules that he lives by — no shortcuts, no complacency."Life is a series of climbing mountains," he says. "You have to be willing to take the time to have the journey, roll up your sleeves and strive for the summit while making sure to get back down alive." The same could be said of the path of an Evergreen business leader. Viesturs’ advice: Listen to the mountain. Conditions will guide your actions. You have to be acutely aware of them, adjust plans accordingly and avoid forcing action on your timeline instead of what the mountain offers.
In times of rapid change and chaos, there’s often no playbook for leaders faced with solving complex problems. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Everett Harper, CEO of software development company Truss, offers insight into a framework he developed to create a pathway for decision making and engineer structure amidst uncertainty.
Carl Erickson, Founder and Chairman of Atomic Object, had spent 18 years building his Evergreen® company—after a career as an academic—when he realized he had come to a pivotal moment in his life. What he did next significantly impacted his business and his personal well-being.
Michael Horn, Co-founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, offers a provocative idea in this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021: Silicon Valley is touted as the hub of innovation, with almost all its companies referring to themselves as “disruptive.” But Evergreen® companies, operating with an “impatient for profit, patient for growth” mentality and generational planning horizons, are actually poised to be the engine for future “market-creating” disruptive innovations. Michael’s presentation provides a compelling view of how these innovations can lead to a far greater number of jobs than other innovation types.
In this talk from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams 2021, Natalie Nagele, Co-founder and CEO of software development company Wildbit, shares an innovative idea that has transformed her Evergreen® company: We can actually work a lot less.
Paced growth is an essential principle of successful Evergreen® businesses. While growth can be organic or accomplished through new ventures, some Evergreen companies will choose to grow through acquisition. Tom Rosztoczy, CEO of Stotz Equipment, has guided his Evergreen company to grow from three John Deere dealerships in Arizona to 25 stores in eight Western states over the past 20 years. In his presentation from the Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, Tom shares the key factors of that successful acquisition journey and the core values that are integrated into each new acquisition to continue to propel his Evergreen business forward.
Everyone deserves to enjoy delicious, high-quality food in a beautiful setting. At 12 locations in Los Angeles, La Monarca Bakery offers just that—notably in largely Latino neighborhoods often overlooked by investors and business owners. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Ricardo Cervantes describes how he and his partner, Alfredo Livas, have committed to delivering a new customer and employee experience in the communities in which La Monarca Bakery operates and their broader dedication to making the world a better place through conservation efforts.
In this panel discussion, presented at the Fourth Annual Olin Family Business Symposium at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in October 2018, three Tugboat Institute members describe their Evergreen journey and specific events and experiences that reflect their companies’ commitment to Evergreen principles.
An Evergreen business eventually comes with a unique challenge: smoothly transferring control and ownership. At 75, Andrew Kawaja’s father still comes to work each day at IFS Industries, the company he founded in 1972. But the senior Kawaja has already successfully completed the leadership transition to his three sons. In his talk, Kawaja details the three core rules his family has followed for a prosperous and harmonious succession.
Chris Mittelstaedt founded The FruitGuys in 1998 as a way to bring healthy, fresh fruit to offices. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Chris shares the unifying theory of doing business that guides the Evergreen® company and keeps the team focused on being in service to others.
The story of In-N-Out Burger is, like many Evergreen® businesses, a love story. Esther and Harry Snyder were deeply committed to each other and to their shared Purpose of building In-N-Out Burger. Their journey and the legacy of their shared dream reflects the foundation they built of People First principles and the continual Pragmatic Innovation and Paced Growth that has led to the iconic restaurant’s lasting success. As part of his Tugboat Institute Summit 2018 welcome address, Dave Whorton, CEO and Founder of Tugboat Institute, shares the In-N-Out Burger story as an example of a business that exemplifies Evergreen principles.
Kevin Switick, President & CEO of Avian, Inc., spent 20 years as a Navy test pilot before founding his defense contracting firm. As he has grown his Evergreen business and developed as a leader, Kevin has become increasingly aware of the key lessons from both his military career and his entrepreneurial education that have guided him as a leader. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Kevin shares these insights and takeaways and describes his commitment to paying his knowledge and success forward through mentorship.
In this panel discussion, presented at the Fourth Annual Olin Family Business Symposium at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis in October 2018, Tugboat Institute members Alaina Macia and Penny Pennington offer insight into their companies’ approaches to ownership and leadership through the Evergreen® lens. Alaina offers the perspective of assuming leadership in and growing her family business, MTM Inc., while Penny, Managing Partner of Edward Jones Financial, shares insights around leading a nearly-100-year-old firm. These inspiring Evergreen leaders speak to what it takes to steward strategic ownership and thrive in the long term.
In this interview with Tugboat Institute Founder and CEO Dave Whorton, Jack Hand, Chairman of POWER Engineers, shares wisdom from his 19 years as CEO of the global consulting engineering firm. Jack offers valuable insight into current dynamics and long-term trends in power generation, distribution, and consumption.
Ingrid Carney, Founder and CEO of Ingrid & Isabel, a maternity essentials company, never considered bravery a defining characteristic of her life or business journey. But now, as she shares in this talk from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, 20 years after founding her Evergreen® business as a new mother, Ingrid has a different view. As she reflects on the many small and big moments of motherhood and entrepreneurship that have led to success and personal growth, she is able to see the through line of bravery in her story and encourages other leaders to do the same.
Bruce Williams, CEO of US Tool, learned a tough lesson fairly early in his career as second-generation leader of the family-owned specialty manufacturing firm. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Bruce shares the difficult conversation that served as a catalyst for personal and professional growth and the parallel, positive trajectory of the business over many years that was the result.
Former Whelan Security President and CEO Greg Twardowski had two impactful, early lessons in the transformative power of connecting emotionally with employees. These lessons guided his stewardship of the 70-year-old contract security business and the company's unique culture. In his presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, Greg shares the very personal experiences that shaped his time at Whelan Security and the values and strategy that propelled the company to 30 years of unprecedented, purposeful growth under his stewardship.
As an expert in small-group dynamics and leadership development, Kaley Klemp coaches leaders and organizations in communication and interaction skills to help develop trusting, effective teams. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Kaley describes the concept of being “above or below the line” in relationships and the three unproductive roles of the “drama triangle,” which can stifle clear communication, creativity, and problem solving.
Chris Ruder, CEO of Spikeball, bought the rights to a childhood game he loved, and through Pragmatic Innovation and a focus on early Profits, relaunched it with an entirely different approach. In this talk from Tugboat Institute Summit, Chris recounts the story of Spikeball, including how he leveraged e-commerce, social media, and existing communities to build a nationwide movement around the product and the opportunity for connection it creates.
Allen Serfas founded and leads Assistance Home Care in St. Louis, Missouri, an Evergreen business he and his wife were inspired to launch after helping to care for his mother-in-law at home over many years. Allen’s personal experience and his unique home care business model reflects an innovative and Purpose-driven approach, informed by a 20-plus year career in a completely different industry.
Dr. Tom Epperson serves as President of InnerWill Leadership Institute, which works with companies to navigate challenge and achieve success through values-based leadership. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Tom shares the origin story of InnerWill, offering insight into the transformation of the family-owned Luck Companies, and describes the process and impact of integrating and operationalizing values-based leadership.
Tugboat Institute Founder & CEO Dave Whorton continues his conversation with Dr. Gary Kunkle, a leading academic researcher in the area of sustained company growth over time.
Bill Roark, CEO and Co-Founder of Torch Technologies, has built a remarkable Evergreen® company in Huntsville, Alabama, with a deep commitment to service. From very humble origins, Bill has been driven to create opportunity and give back, inspiring his team to do the same. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Bill shares the path that took him from a tar-paper shack to become Co-Founder and CEO of a now $400 million defense contracting company.
Dr. Gary Kunkle is a leading academic researcher in the area of sustained company growth over time. In this interview with Dave Whorton, Founder and CEO of Tugboat Institute, Gary offers insight into several of the key variables that set sustained growth companies apart and perspective on the role these businesses play in the economy and in communities.
Alissa Leinonen is the award-winning Founder & CEO of Seattle’s largest and longest running woman-owned catering and boxed-lunch company, Gourmondo Co. What began as a small, four-table lunch spot in Pike Place Market over 20 years ago is now a leader in the Pacific Northwest catering industry. There is much about Alissa and her success that is remarkable, but perhaps most inspiring is her commitment to People First—to her family, her employees, and her community. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Alissa describes how that commitment to People First has guided her throughout her journey as an entrepreneur and through the challenges of the COVID period, when over 24-hours in the early days of the pandemic she saw 80 percent of her business disappear. Alissa’s remarkable pivot to serve her community and save her business is an inspiring Evergreen success story.
Navigating the wake of the COVID pandemic will continue to present challenges and uncertainty for Evergreen businesses. In this period, it can be helpful to look to leaders who have persevered through difficulty and maintained a focus on their purpose and their people. In this welcome presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Dave Whorton, Founder and CEO of Tugboat Institute, offers insight into George Washington’s exemplary life and career and shares inspiration from this early Evergreen leader.
Jeff Patterson, CEO of Gaggle, has unique insight into the experience of students’ online lives in today’s remote learning landscape. Gaggle serves school districts around the country through the development and management of a digital student safety net and trained safety experts that schools use to monitor activity on devices and apps, alerting schools to the possibility of students harming themselves or others. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2020, Jeff encourages parents and employers of parents to be particularly attentive to the mental health and well-being of children in the academic year ahead. As students face the loss of school and all-important social connections, he offers valuable perspective to help families and employers navigate this period and understand what’s at stake in this unprecedented time.
How would you finance an acquisition? Deplete your cash flow? Take out a bank loan? Ignore the opportunity to avoid risk? In this 5-minute presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Ami Kassar, founder and CEO of MultiFunding LLC, and author of The Growth Dilemma, presents another—less well-known—option for funding growth.
With the privilege of owning and operating a multi-generational family business comes tremendous responsibility to educate children in the family about the business and wealth management. This panel discussion from the Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, moderated by Dave Whorton, highlights “what not to do” and draws on the expertise of leading family office and multi-generational business experts Spencer Burke, Executive Vice President, St. Louis Trust Company; Kim Sheehy, Vice President, Fidelity Family Office Services; and Loren Feldman, Senior Editor, Forbes.
In a Fireside Chat with Tugboat Institute Founder and CEO Dave Whorton, Robert Pasin, CEO of Radio Flyer, notes his immense gratitude for the opportunity to continue to build the business his grandfather Antonio founded in 1917, led by his values. The commitment to integrity in busienss and magnanimous approach to community that Antonio embodied have guided Robert through difficult periods in his and the company’s trajectory and continue to guide the Evergreen leader today.
Pamela Kan is unique—a female owner-operator in a traditional manufacturing business. Pamela leads Bishop-Wisecarver, the company her father founded in Pittsburg, California. In this episode, Pamela offers insight into the principles and experiences that shaped her leadership journey as CEO of an Evergreen® woman-owned manufacturing business and her commitment to introducing and nurturing other female leaders.
Michael Shearn is a value investor, author on the topic (The Investment Checklist), and student of Warren Buffett’s values and Berkshire Hathaway’s approach to company building. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Michael shares what he believes creates real value in companies and offers tactical takeaways for Evergreen leaders.
Launched by Tugboat Institute in 2019 as Tugboat Talks, this podcast was created by stories of Evergreen companies, offering inspiring insight into the principles that drive these private, purpose-driven businesses and their leaders--exemplars of a movement that we believe represents capitalism at its best. Many of the talks and interviews we share here have been curated from our weekly Evergreen Journal newsletter, through which we share articles and videos each week. Now, to align this podcast with that source and connected social media (Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook) to ensure you can follow the voice of the Evergreen movement across multiple channels, we are rebranding this podcast as Evergreen Journal by Tugboat Institute. We look forward to continuing to share regular episodes. For further information about the Evergreen movement and our membership community, visit TugboatInstitute.com.
In this episode of The Evergreen Experience™ 2020, recorded on June 26, 2020, Dave is joined by John Grossman, President, Grossman Company Properties, and Robin Petravic, Owner/Managing Director, Heath Ceramics. John and Robin both lead businesses that were especially hard-hit early by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic—hotels and dinnerware/tile manufacturing, respectively. Having been forced to an almost-complete stop, both Evergreen® leaders are now emerging through uncertain and challenging conditions in their industries and share their experiences and key learnings.
In this episode of The Evergreen Experience™, recorded on June 19, 2020, Dave is joined by John Burns, CEO, John Burns Real Estate Consulting, and Todd Govig, President and CEO, Govig Executive Search. John and Todd share their experiences leading and adapting their Evergreen® consulting and professional services companies through the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, John share his current view on prospects for different real estate industry sectors and Todd shares his insights on executive hiring across industries.
Rebecca Rusch calls herself the most decorated athlete you've never heard of. The endurance competitor says she does her best work in the most stressful and challenging conditions. She's ridden camels in Morocco. She swam the Grand Canyon on a boogie board. She's ridden the entire 2,000 miles of the Ho Chi Minh trail on her bicycle. She could have made a lot more money with her business degree. "But I'm rich in experience," she says. Despite her rugged outdoor career, she says she's not so different from Evergreen entrepreneurs — leaders who know what they want and work hard to attain it, even if other people think they're crazy.
Jim Kimzey, CEO, Tender Rose Dementia Care Specialists, and Samson Liu, CEO, SOHDental lead businesses in the healthcare industry, designated as essential services. Both are navigating significant challenge and, in some cases, surprising opportunities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. On June 5, 2020, Jim and Samson joined Dave Whorton as guests on The Evergreen Experience and spoke to their experiences, including their shared focus on client and staff safety and the steps they have taken to strengthen their teams and processes.
Alissa Leinonen, CEO & Founder of catering company Gourmondo Co., and Bryan Papé, Founder, MiiR, a drinkware company with a social and environmental mission lead businesses in Seattle, Washington - hit hard and early by the COVID-19 pandemic. On May 29, 2020, Alissa and Bryan joined Dave Whorton as guests on The Evergreen Experience™ to speak to the impact of COVID-19 on their respective businesses, the critical role of their Purpose, the importance of strategic partnerships and reinvention in this challenging time, and their outlook moving forward.
John Creighton, President & CEO, High Plains Bank, and Eric Wallace, President & Co-Founder, Left Hand Brewing Co. both live and lead businesses in Colorado. On May 22, 2020, John and Eric joined Dave Whorton on The Evergreen Experience™ to share the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on their businesses, the innovations and adaptations that they have tried, their view on the future of their industries and how Evergreen® principles have guided them.
Scott Evans, CEO of Kenmore Envelope Company, and Val Hollingsworth, President & CEO of Hollingsworth & Vose Co.both lead manufacturing companies in two different industries. In this May 15, 2020 recording of The Evergreen Experience™, Scott and Val join Dave Whorton in conversation around the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on their businesses, the innovations and adaptations that they have tried, their view on the future of their industries, and the way in which Evergreen® principles are informing their approach to and perspective on this challenging time.
Brian Canlis, President and Co-Owner, Canlis, and Carrie Freeman Parsons, Chair, Freeman, both lead family businesses in industries especially hard-hit by the COVID-19 crisis—restaurants (Canlis) and major event management (Freeman). In this recording of the inaugural, May 8, 2020 episode of The Evergreen Experience™, Brian and Carrie share with Tugboat Institute Founder & CEO Dave Whorton how they have adapted and reimagined their companies in this unprecedented period, displaying inspiring resiliency rooted in their Purpose and enabled by their Evergreen values.
Navy SEAL Commander Rorke Denver is not just an American Hero, he is a true American warrior. He figured out at a young age that he was a “sheepdog.” His role in life was to take care of others and to protect them from the bad guys. So it’s not surprising that Rorke ended up being Commander of the U.S. Navy SEALs, leading impossibly tough battles in every major international hot spot. But, Rorke’s contributions went far beyond leadership in gun fights, he also was instrumental in changing how the Navy SEALs recruited and trained new cadets, placing much greater emphasis on character, resilience and empathy over test scores and varsity letters. He reminds us that there are values worth dying for.
Howard Behar joined Starbucks in 1989 when the company had 28 stores, becoming president of North America and later founding president of Starbucks international. Through his leadership, he established Starbucks’ culture of People First and was instrumental in Starbucks’ growth to over 15,000 stores internationally. In a discussion with Tugboat Institute CEO Dave Whorton, Howard shares his life story and how a single lesson from his dad in their family’s grocery store forged his belief that meaning in life is all about being of service to other human beings. Behar contends that all businesses are in the people business, whether they realize it or not. From there, Howard shares the most important lessons from his experience growing Starbucks and closes with how he forgot to take his own advice upon his resignation from a long, successful career at Starbucks.
In October 2003, General (Ret.) Stanley McChrystal was assigned to JSOC (Joint Special Operations Command) to command counter-terrorism operations in Iraq. General McChrystal’s innovative reorganization of the communication processes and practices of the entire command turned the tide of the war and connected people, cultures, and operations. He turned a tribe of tribes to a team of teams. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Gathering of Teams, General McChrystal shares the story of that transformation and how those lessons can be applied to businesses and leaders today.
What do you envision when you picture idyllic small-town life? Beautiful historic buildings? A walkable downtown core filled with thriving businesses? Connected neighbors and a vibrant sense of civic pride? All of these points are goals for Amy Simmons, founder of Amy’s Ice Creams, who has been revitalizing the town of Smithville, Texas.
Tugboat Institute member Penny Pennington was appointed Managing Partner at Edward Jones—the sixth in its 97-year history—in 2019. Edward Jones has over 43,000 associates and 7 million clients who trust Edward Jones to help them achieve their financial goals—the company is Evergreen through and through. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Penny shares her insight into the fundamental importance of building and maintaining trust in Evergreen businesses—with employees and with customers.
Doug Tatum is a Professor at Florida State University and a student of business. He’s an expert, specifically, in the area of scaling small businesses through a challenging period termed “No Man’s Land,” during which a leader can do what appears right and still see their business fail. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Doug shares insights into how Evergreen leaders can strategize to successfully navigate this potentially treacherous period—and emerge to thrive.
Wynne Odell and her husband, Doug, founded Odell Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado in 1989. In the three decades since, the company has persevered and grown, aligned with the Evergreen 7Ps™. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Wynne shares stories of challenge and success, offering an authentic and inspiring story of Evergreen business.
JT McCormick survived a childhood marked by abuse and neglect. He barely graduated from high school and does not have a college degree. In spite of these obstacles, JT refuses to consider himself a victim and embraces the opportunity he has—as President and CEO of Scribe Media—to inspire young people facing challenge and other Evergreen leaders. In this moving, deeply personal talk presented at Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, JT describes his journey of perseverance and shares key lessons of his experience.
Brian Griffith, Executive Chairman of Griffith Foods, a fourth-generation global business in the food space, has taken the importance of employees’ alignment around Purpose to a new level. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Brian shares how he and his team have operationalized Purpose within the organization, building a platform for associates to explore and define personal purpose and understand the intersection of that purpose with that of the company.
Fifty percent of every sale of Double Good gourmet popcorn is donated to support children with special needs. Alongside that clear focus on making a difference is 20 years of consistent revenue growth. In his Tugboat Institute Summit 2018 presentation, Double Good CEO Tim Heitmann describes the powerful sense of purpose that has evolved over the company’s history—and the significant period of challenge that he feared would derail the business.
From the time she was a little girl, Mia Tate has loved stories. Her commitment to listening to and connecting with others’ experiences has inspired her work as an actor, writer, director, and producer. In fact, she has come to realize that the seemingly simple act of listening is a unique and valuable skill. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Mia offers valuable perspective and inspiration around the essential act of listening and shares the power of this skill to transform professional and personal connections.
In 2009, Michael Kiolbassa was tired and on the verge of burnout. An early morning moment of spiritual surrender provided a personal and professional pivot point for the CEO and President of Kiolbassa Smoked Meats. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Michael shares the story of the journey of transformation that followed that moment of release, as he embraced vulnerability and infused his company with Purpose
Twenty percent of U.S. businesses are now owned by private equity (PE), far surpassing the number of public and independent, privately held companies. And, PE firms have over $3 trillion of additional purchase power. What is driving this growth, and will it change? What is the PE playbook, and how is it used to convince owners to sell and to “add-value” after purchase? What can Evergreen companies do about it?
In this opening presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Tugboat Institute Founder and CEO Dave Whorton offers key statistics and drivers in the rise of PE, valuable insight into the PE playbook, and 14 things Evergreen CEOs and their teams can do about it.
The food industry is notoriously difficult with thin margins, disappearing trends and a constantly rotating employee base. But Erin Wade has found a way to use the industry to build opportunities not only for herself but also for others. As co-founder and CEO of Homeroom, her full-service mac-and-cheese restaurant, she is building a unique culture within her industry. As a savvy Evergreen entrepreneur, she is creating a highly profitable growth business to fulfill her own aspirations and fostering a culture her employees value. And, Homeroom’s profitability puts it in the top 5 percent of performers in the industry.
We all have our own cognitive maps, unique to us and determined by our individual experiences and history. Sometimes, these maps can be limiting—in business and in life. While challenging, having the courage and perseverance to see beyond the borders of your own cognitive map—and those of others—can lead to transformative expansion, innovation, and success for Evergreen businesses. In his presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, Arpad Molnar, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of Obsidian Wine Co., shares his experience building a business that has continually disrupted the cognitive map within his industry and has maintained a steadfast focus on the long term, rather than on short-term gains.
Jessica Rovello is the co-founder and CEO of Arkadium, an online gaming company based in Ukraine and the U.S. that provides brands and publishers with interactive, brand-safe content. In early 2014, when 100 of her Ukraine-based employees were affected by the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, Rovello’s commitment to Perseverance and putting People First was put to the test.
In her talk, Rovello walks us through a chronological series of geopolitical business challenges that nearly shut down her company. Through sheer grit and determination, Arkadium, within 18 months, went from the edge of despair to its highest year of revenue and profitability, all while solidifying its unique company culture.
Will Thorndike is an investor and author of The Outsiders, a study of eight unconventional CEOs who did an exceptional job of allocating capital in their businesses. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Will shares the essential lessons of the CEOs he profiled in his book, as well as updated insights.
For Evergreen leaders, connection with and commitment to family are essential factors that lead to and support success. In this presentation from Tugboat Institute Summit 2019, Tugboat Institute Chairperson Jeff Snipes shares parenting and leadership insights gained through his work as founder of Millennium Schools, involvement in Challenge Success at Stanford, and as a dad himself, into the epidemic of anxiety among children today and provides three key approaches to support one’s children and, by extension, one’s employees.
Even a legendary, 100-year-old brand like Radio Flyer — the little red wagon that's become an iconic part of the lives of millions of children — needs to work hard to ensure its continued success. “I knew we had all this great stuff about our brand," says Robert Pasin, Radio Flyer's CEO. “But I soon learned that the company was at kind of a crossroads and we have some problems.”
In his Tugboat Institute Summit talk, Pasin shares the origins of his family business and his desire to continue to build upon his family’s brand while developing a culture that fosters creativity and innovation. It’s the company’s values and mission-driven work environment that help fuel Radio Flyer’s continued growth.
In business and in life, many of us fill our packs with emotional, physical, and professional weight that can impact our ability to move efficiently and in good health. Intentionally unpacking obligations, habits, and control that don’t serve us can create opportunity for transformative growth—in self and in Evergreen business.
In his presentation from the Tugboat Institute Summit 2018, Joe Motz, President and CEO of The Motz Corporation, describes the pivotal, personal experience that set him on a journey of intentional unpacking and the joyful changes that process has brought to his business and his physical and emotional wellbeing.
Dennis Madsen’s journey at outdoor retailer REI started in the stock room at REI’s first store when Madsen was 17. Under his leadership as CEO, and later as a board member, REI grew to the national brand it is today, respected for its products, inviting stores and quality customer service. In this Tugboat Institute Summit talk, Madsen acquaints us with REI’s remarkable history, its unique co-op model, his growth with the company and how REI focuses on its employees, customers and local communities.
How does ownership of a company affect its ability to compete—for better or for worse? With a professional background that spans 20 years and includes consulting roles with Fortune 500 companies, the philanthropic sector, and family businesses, BanyanGlobal Partner and Co-Founder Josh Baron is uniquely qualified to answer that question.
In his Tugboat Institute Summit 2018 presentation, Josh describes the sustainable, competitive advantage of Evergreen businesses in this century, the survival strategies that will allow Evergreens to make the most of that advantage, and why he feels these businesses can make a dent in the universe.
What is Evergreen? In this keynote presentation from the Fourth Annual Olin Family Business Symposium at Washington University in St. Louis on October 12, 2018, Dave Whorton shares the journey of discovery that led to his founding of Tugboat Institute and the Evergreen Movement.
Throughout his talk, he debunks common myths about business and contrasts them with the competitive advantage of Evergreens, and describes how Tugboat Institute is supporting Evergreen leaders and businesses today.