Evergreen Journal by Tugboat Institute

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 Courtney McKee has experienced a series of enormous challenges in her life, both personal and professional, but she has overcome them all. Her secret weapons are her resilience and her Perseverance, both of which are fueled by her strong sense of Purpose.

In this Tugboat Institute talk, Courtney shares some of the challenges she has faced and overcome and how her values of courage and community give her the strength to persevere, even in the most challenging of times. Her story is a wonderful example of the strength and power of Evergreen® values in action, and the heights to which they enable us to soar.

Listen and be inspired to double down on your values, and become unstoppable.

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.