Will Marre Uncovers 21st Century Winning Business Strategies

April 11, 2011 - PRLog -- Will Marre, CEO of REALeadership Alliance and author of Save the World and Still Be Home For Dinner, releases his findings from “Apple to Zappos: Leadership Lessons From Today’s Successful Leaders Who Are Doing Things No One Else Is”.  Based on over 12 months research with the University of California San Diego and the Clemson University Business School including data research, executive interviews and in-the-trenches client projects with many of today’s thriving companies, “Apple to Zappos” is today’s up-to-the minute story of how innovative companies are thriving by turning business-as-usual upside down.

One such finding, according to Marre, is how industry leaders like Apple, Southwest, Pixar, Nike, Google, Starbucks, IBM, and Zappos all break the limits of industry benchmarks by over investing in a few value driving priorities and eliminating wasted time and energy on their clear eyed view of what doesn’t matter.  As Steve Job said, “Saying no to the 80 percent gives value to the 20 percent.”

Marre gives the example of Apple who is driving $100 billion in annual revenue with just four products (computers, phones, MP3 players, and a revolutionary tablet).  Marre asserts, “That is astonishing product discipline that allows them to concentrate overwhelming force on design, marketing, and distribution.” Marre also cites Zappos as an example because they spend no money on marketing or advertising but spend truckloads on training, creative customer service, and overnight shipping to impress their loyal customers.  As Zappos’ Donavan Roberson put it, “We succeed because we do it our way.  Benchmarking causes mediocrity.”  

Marre contends that the most radical difference of companies that are growing their own innovation is their high vitality cultures that promote extreme talent development, self-expression, social learning and physical health.  He states, “Companies that are succeeding with new innovation give their talent time to think, ways to connect, good food to eat and work that’s relevant to value creation.  They have moved from treating people as a workforce to a talent force.”  Marre continues, “You see a stark difference how employees are developed, and managed from companies who rely on innovation in sectors like technology and entertainment and virtually everyone else who views workers as cogs in their six sigma machines.”    

Marre states, “As our research on what exceptional leaders are doing to thrive in the 21st century continues, I am reminded of one thing an executive I recently interviewed said, ‘More new businesses will succeed and more old businesses will fail in the next 25 years than any time in history.’  We are already seeing the reasons why that is likely to be true.”  

Visit http://www.willmarre.com/blog to follow Marre’s research and to nominate companies to be included in “Apples to Zappos.”

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About Will Marre:

Will Marre is CEO of Realeadership Alliance and founder of Thought Rocket, a new online leadership development platform providing up-to-the-minute leadership research on what successful organizations are doing to thrive in the 21st century. Will Marre is also the cofounder of the Covey Leadership Center where he brought the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People to millions of executives and managers worldwide. He also heads the advisory board of the Human Performance Institute (a Johnson & Johnson company) and is an Emmy award-winning writer of a public television learning documentary. For more information please visit http://www.willmarre.com.