Great Leaps of Faith
Oscar Gonzalez is the youngest of 13 siblings. When he was very young, his father and a few of Oscar's older 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.
Watch and be inspired to take a risk for your dream, fueled by your own deep faith in its promise and possibility.
Risking More for an Audacious Purpose
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, aim 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.
Watch and be inspired to take a risk for an audacious purpose.
Closing the Gap: Taking Action in Our Spheres of Influence
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.
Two Jims
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 Starbucks 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.
Watch and be inspired to care like you mean it.
What Business Are You Really In?
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.
Watch and understand what this might look like in your industry and company, and how you need to adjust your strategy to keep current.
Entrepreneurship Within the Family Business
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 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.
Watch and be inspired to see opportunities not just within, but also alongside of, your family business.
Keys to Building Resilience in Your Family, Your Business, and Yourself
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?
Watch and gain confidence as you strive to support and inspire resilience in your children, your employees, and yourself.
Innovating for the Long Term: 1728-2023
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 a global leader in filtration and energy storage systems, 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 and current Board Chair 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.
Watch and be inspired to up your game on the innovation front and ensure your survival for 100 years or more.
On Time
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 cannot escape a short term mindset, 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.
Watch and learn how and why time is on the Evergreen company's side.
Debunking Growth Myths
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.
Watch and learn how to tweak your strategy to increase your chances of successful, long-term growth.