SmartTribes: How Teams Become Brilliant Together - Hardcover

Comaford, Christine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 159184648X ISBN 13: 9781591846482

Publisher: Portfolio, 2013

Synopsis

Are You Scaring Your People into Mediocrity?
 
All leaders want to outperform, outsell, and outin­novate the competition. And most teams are fully capable of doing so. The problem: we consistently say and do things that spark unconscious fears and keep our people stuck in their Critter State. This primitive fight, flight, or freeze mode distills all decision mak­ing to one question: What will keep me safest?
 
Lying low, sucking up, procrastinating, and doing a good enough job may keep employees breathing, but it doesn’t make for vital organizations. Leaders have to get their people unstuck and fully engaged, replacing their old, limiting mental patterns with new patterns that foster optimal performance.
 
New York Times bestselling author and applied neuroscience expert Christine Comaford knows what it takes to move people from the Critter State into the Smart State, where they have full access to their own creativity, innovation, higher consciousness, and emotional engagement. When an entire culture maintains that state, it becomes what she calls a SmartTribe. Focused. Accountable. Collaborative. Imbued with the energy and passion to solve problems and do what needs doing, again and again and again.
 
Comaford brings to this book more than thirty years of company-building experience, combined with her expertise in behavioral modification and organizational development. She has helped hun­dreds of leaders navigate rapid growth, maximize performance, resolve internal conflicts, and execute turnarounds with the full support of their people.
 
Now she shares potent yet easy-to-learn neuro­science techniques that will help you do the same. You’ll learn how to move your team forward and reach your next revenue inflection point using the five key Accelerators of the Smart State—focus, clar­ity, accountability, influence, and sustainability. You’ll get better at anticipating and moving through your own stuck spots and those of your people.
 
Using her proven system, Comaford’s clients have already created hundreds of millions of dollars in new value. They’ve seen their revenues and profits increase by up to 210% annually; individuals become up to 50% more productive and 100% more account­able; marketing demand generation grow by up to 237%; new products and services created up to 48% faster; and sales close up to 50% faster. They spot changes in their markets more quickly, then pounce on them to create the future they want.
 
Ultimately, SmartTribes will help you and your team achieve optimal performance and engagement—brilliance—and leave competitors in the dust.

About this title

About the Author:

Christine Comaford is a thought leader who helps midsized and Fortune 1000 companies navigate growth and change, an expert in human behavior and applied neurosci­ence, and the bestselling author of Rules for Renegades.
 
Bill Gates calls her “super high bandwidth.” Bill Clinton has thanked her for “fostering American entrepreneurship.” Newsweek says, “By reputation, Christine is the person you want to partner with.”
 
During her diverse career, she has consulted to two White Houses, has built and sold five of her own businesses, and has helped more than fifty clients exit their businesses at record high valuations. She writes a leadership column for Forbes.com and is frequently quoted in the business and technology media. She lives in the hills north of San Francisco.
 
Visit www.christinecomaford.com

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

RAVE REVIEWS
FOR THE SMARTTRIBES TECHNIQUES

“Thank you for all your work in fostering American entrepreneurship.”

—PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON

“Christine is super-high bandwidth.”

—BILL GATES

“CCA has made a huge difference in the growth of our company, the level of leadership across the team, the sense of ownership in all of our employees. In addition, they are helping me perform at new levels I had not known were possible. The results have been remarkable. Our employees are more engaged and taking greater initiative, our emerging leaders are learning how to be more effective and are mentoring their reports to be the same, and our company is reaping the substantial benefits. We are on track to double our eight-digit revenue in the coming year. Thanks, CCA!”

—MICHAEL VANERDEWYK, CEO, ReliaMax

“Whatever business challenge we’ve come up with, Christine and the CCA team have worked through it before—and often across multiple industries. CCA’s tools and techniques are practical, easy to apply, and super impactful. Whether it’s company-wide accountability and incentive plans, sales process and strategy, marketing measurement and effectiveness, or cultural programs to increase engagement, CCA has tools and past ROI measurements for each investment we consider making. Thanks, CCA—here’s to our next level of growth together!”

—KRISTIN RICHMOND, CEO, Revolution Foods

“From our first conversation, Christine asked me questions no coach or consultant ever had. In the first ninety days we created and communicated a compelling new mission, vision, and set of values—which tangibly increased engagement and alignment within our entire company, launched a vibrant innovation program—which yielded the first results within forty-eight hours—and rolled out new accountability structures. Our leaders are more focused, more clear in their communication and directives, more accountable, and more influential; most importantly, the energy behind the innovative process is palpable. CCA has positively and profoundly positioned us for future growth.”

—JEFF HOFFMAN,
Vice President/General Manager, Baxter Manufacturing

“CCA has helped us ‘up’ our own high expectations of ourselves. We have streamlined our sales process and provided our team with new tools and techniques, our marketing is more effective and ROI-focused than ever, and our implementation process is tight and run by a cross-functional team. The best part is that I have more energy, focus, and time than ever before. Our new incentive plans, accountability structure, executive team code of conduct, ranking of high- and low-value activities, and other techniques have provided the executive team members with five to ten hours of strategic time per person each week. I knew we had a great team, and I see now that they’re capable of far more than I could’ve dreamed. Thanks, CCA!”

—JASON BEANS, CEO, Rising Medical Solutions

“When I first met Christine I wasn’t sure what the return on investment in coaching could truly be. Now I know what it is: I think bigger working with Christine—we will double (or greater) our revenue this year as a result of my increased ability to create new strategies, expand my vision, see into my blind spots. She helped me create accountability structures and communication rhythms so everyone is aligned and charging forward. In less than 120 days we closed the largest deal in our company’s history using the strategy Christine and I created together. I know what’s going to happen next—we’ll exceed our sales quota. Again. This is now how we roll. Thanks, CCA! Thanks, Christine!”

—SHARON MACDONALD, CEO, Interim Furnishings

“The results have been terrific. In our first six months working together, Christine helped me delegate low-value activities and gain fifteen hours of strategic time per week, optimize our sales pipeline and process, get me out of stress and into peace and increased performance, and streamline both marketing and account management. Christine is personable, creative, extremely intuitive, and understands the steps needed for a company to consistently grow. I highly recommend CCA for any organization that wants to take their company to the next level and build a great team.”

—GAIL TOLSTOI-MILLER, CEO, Consultnetworx

“I’ve been in boardrooms around the world, and I’ve been in the C-suite for many years. I thought I’d learned a great deal about leadership and culture in my roles as COO and CFO at Patagonia, and CEO at Smith & Hawken. Then I met Christine. Our team has come together in a way I couldn’t have imagined prior to coaching with CCA. We now have the right people in the right roles with the right tools on the right initiatives. Our revenue and profitability is rapidly growing; our culture is rich, honest, and thriving; and our team is rising up and performing at unparalleled levels. I always knew we had this in us! Thanks for helping us to help ourselves, CCA.”

—KARYN BARSA, CEO, Coyuchi

“Christine has been very effective in helping me establish a strong meeting and communication rhythm, which has increased our team’s morale and improved our culture. She has provided practical advice on rewards/consequences and increasing our alignment. We have implemented systems to improve our accountability, which has led to our largest pipeline in history and more proactive sales activity across the firm. I am really excited about where we are going and greatly appreciate all that Christine is doing for us.”

—SCOTT EISENBERG, Managing Partner, Amherst Partners, LLC

“Working with CCA has made a huge positive difference for us in sales, marketing, culture, operational efficiency, and leadership overall. Our sales plan is now streamlined, and our reps have compelling new incentives. We’ve put in place a solid ROI structure and can cost-justify our marketing. As a result of our work with CCA I have increased visibility of each department and can help guide our company more effectively. Operational efficiency at our company has reached a new level—and we’re raising the bar. The best part is that our culture is deepening, our team is emotionally engaged, and we know where we’re going and how to get there.”

—ASHA CHAUDHARY, CEO, Jaipur Rugs

“CCA has helped me to become a more effective leader in the eyes of my team members, my colleagues, my strategic partners, and the loved ones in my personal life. Our team loves working with Christine. They are now more aligned, are closely tracking to our goals, and are more emotionally engaged and accountable. We’ve recently had the two best months of our history, and the trend continues upward. We’re on track to significantly increase revenue and profitability in the coming year. CCA has truly ‘moved the needle’ for our business.”

—DIONE SPITERI, CEO, U.S. Appraisal Group

“If you want to gain tremendous clarity on your business strategy and priorities, consider CCA. CCA’s best value comes in changing mindsets and improving strategies in an environment that is ready to rapidly grow. If you’re a CEO or executive on a rapid growth trajectory, and you want to be the best leader possible for your team, with CCA you’ll experience unparalleled levels of insight, growth, and support. We’re highly profitable and are diversifying into new markets, revenues continue to exceed our projections, and our team is deeply coming together. Thanks, CCA!”

—SABETAY PALATCHI, CEO, General Financial

“I’d heard about executive coaching for a while, yet was fairly skeptical regarding the return on investment. Within the first six months my leadership style evolved in ways I couldn’t have imagined. Using the tools I’ve gained from CCA, especially the neuroscience rapport techniques, I now more quickly and deeply connect with our team, clients, and prospects. The inquiry techniques have enabled me to more rapidly create a culture of leadership at all levels, helping our team to take greater ownership faster. Our profit is soaring and our people are performing at record levels. Thanks, CCA, for helping us to grow into who we’d always hoped to be.”

—MARK PAYNE, President, ReliaMax Surety Group

“Before working with CCA we weren’t always working effectively as a team. Within one day of CCA’s training, we had over 33% of our entire company ask for more responsibility and to have the bar raised on their leadership contribution. As a result of our work with CCA, our morale is higher. Our retention is up. We’ve had record levels of revenue for several months and we’re seeing real gains in cross-functional team productivity. Our CEO now calls Talent the Heart and Soul of the organization.”

—RICK THOMPSON,
VP Talent Management and Administration, Rising Medical Solutions

“We’re a high-performance service team in a very complex business with very demanding customers. We’ve been ‘hard at it’ tasked with delivering huge savings and other value contributions to the business year after year. We also reduced our head count significantly during the same time. Christine Comaford spent time with our team talking about how we could use her learnings to reenergize, beat bureaucracy, and put excitement back into the job. We’re a tough group...but it was transformational. She’s the best!”

—GREGG BRANDYBERRY, Former Vice President,
Procurement, Global Systems and Operations, GlaxoSmithKline

“How do you inspire a global sales force to adopt new, high-velocity sales techniques and get beyond ‘no’ even in the face of a down economy? Christine Comaford. That’s how. Thanks for rocking our sales conference! Your proven tactics for sales and life success left everyone inspired, invigorated, and ready to exceed their quotas!”

—TIM MINAHAN, CMO, Ariba, Inc.

“When the Oval Office says ‘jump!,’ the only question is, ‘how high?’ Christine helped us develop and launch our intranet strategy, which was super-aggressive for standard-pace government workers. She got everyone past the fear of change and into the excitement of it—and now Americans have access to far more government data via self-serve websites. Christine’s contribution to creating a government that works better and costs less was critical.”

—GREG WOODS, National Performance Review,
Clinton administration

“When my boss said he wanted me to increase our top line sales by 30% fast I was wondering how I’d do it. We’re a huge company, and growth like this doesn’t happen overnight. CCA helped us to use the latest neuroscience techniques to shift the state of our sales team to a more positive and empowered state, to streamline our sales process, to develop rapid rapport with our prospects and partners, to more deeply engage with our sales and service teams. The result is that we now have massive momentum...we have a clear and rapid path to our increased sales, we’re getting more meetings, we’re closing faster, we’re having a lot more fun and less stress. I have new tools to develop my sales team faster and keep them on track. Thanks, CCA, for helping us sell at the level I always knew we could.”

—TOM MOORE,
Director of Sales and Marketing, Baxter Manufacturing

“Our members rely on us to provide them with leading-edge speakers and breakthrough ideas. Christine keynoted our annual CEO conference and got a standing ovation. Need I say more? Nope.”

—MIKE SANSOLO, Senior Vice President, Food Marketing Institute

“Our client appreciation event was our best ever—thanks to you, Christine! You reinforced our brand as the financial adviser whose finger is on the pulse of what the high-net-worth individual needs. Our clients and prospects were enthralled, entertained, and eager to take decisive action regarding their financial future.”

—JOY BOATWRIGHT, Senior Financial Advisor,
Merrill Lynch Global Private Client Services

“Christine’s coaching has been instrumental in accelerating growth in my company from 2011 to 2012—triple digit this last year. She pushes, she paws at existing structures, and she insists on performance. Great investment!”

—LISA CALHOUN, CEO, Write2Market;
2012 Female Entrepreneure of the Year Finalist, American Business Awards;
Atlanta Top 23 Entrepreneur, 2012; Past President, EO Atlanta

“Christine delivered a thought-provoking keynote at our recent client and team appreciation event. The audience was entertained, encouraged, and gently challenged to take their careers and lives to the next level. Christine’s pragmatic techniques for reinventing oneself, increasing connection with others, and delivering results were all spot-on. The feedback has been phenomenal!”

—KIM HOPKINS, SR. Vice President, Area Sales Manager,
Business Banking, National City Bank

“Your keynote at our client appreciation event was a smashing success! Thanks for a lively, inspirational, thought-provoking program. I know everyone left with tangible takeaways to both excel in their careers and lead balanced, fulfilling lives. Thanks, Christine!”

—KYLEEN FISHWICK, Integrated Account Manager, Businessweek

“If you need a speaker to engage your most difficult audience—‘Type A,’ dynamic business leaders who are often difficult to engage—you need Christine Comaford. Her ideas and techniques are both specific and actionable when it comes to generating predictable revenue, building passionate teams, and driving profitable growth, and are delivered in a fun and fascinating way. Our clients are still talking about her presentation and consider it our best yet! Put her in front of your toughest audience and you won’t be disappointed!”

—SUNNY NUNAN, President & Founder, Core24

“For the past eighteen years, I have hired hundreds of speakers. Over the years, one speaker’s message runs into the next and the thrill of hearing speakers’ presentations and messages has dulled. Yet when I read Christine Comaford’s book Rules for Renegades, I knew she was different and that I had to hire her and bring her to my YPO client, Global One. Christine speaks from her heart and her personal experience with a lot of value to business owners. She shares real information for a real person facing real challenges in their business and her accountable coaching strategy for executives gets measurably improved results and a positive impact on corporate profits. I highly recommend Christine. My client YPO Global One rated her presentation a perfect 10!!!”

—SAMANTHA BORLAND, Chapter Administrator, YPO Global One Chapter

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About this edition

• Publisher: Portfolio
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 159184648X
• ISBN 13: 9781591846482
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 272