March, 2011

Terry Starbucker

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Leadership And The Flywheel Effect: Don’t Forget The Grease

Terry Starbucker

Once a target is set in a business, for most leaders it’s a natural tendency to jump right into the business of hitting it – in other words, massing the effort and “push&# needed to achieve what Jim Collins ( “Good to Great&# ) called the “ Flywheel Effect “ I’ve always liked the flywheel analogy, because it’s a great mental image of how a business gets from Point A to Point B.

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The Sam Malone Leadership Secret (They Want To Go Where Everybody Knows Their Name)

Terry Starbucker

For 15 years I worked for a man named Bill Bresnan. He was a cable television pioneer and one of the legends in the industry, having built his first cable system in 1958, and quickly rising to the top in the early 70′s as the CEO of TelePrompter. He later started his own cable company, Bresnan Communications, in 1984, and continued to operate cable systems both internationally and domestically until his too-early passing in 2009.

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Beyond Words: 4 Great Tips For More Effective Speaking

Terry Starbucker

As leaders, we utter a lot of words, and in doing so, we trust that those who follow us will process them in just the way we intended. That can be quite difficult to do, given today’s short attention spans, and the usual times we do our talking. Take first thing in the morning, for example. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve stared into everyone’s morning “fog&# and tried to get a message across (sometimes I was just better off declaring “time for coffee&# a

Tips 265
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The Secret Life Of Terry Starbucker

Terry Starbucker

It’s time. It’s time to merge two worlds together. The world of “Terry Starbucker&# the blogger, Social Media, and SOBCon person, and the world of the other Terry – the one who came up with Terry Starbucker in the first place. Starbucker started out as no more than a screen name on a Blogger page back on December 25, 2005 (named after a certain brand of coffee).

CPA 263
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Before You Start Leading, Know These 5 Things (Learned The Hard Way)

Terry Starbucker

I’ll never forget my first day as an executive. I had just moved from San Antonio to Los Angeles for this “ once in a lifetime &# opportunity to be the head operations person for a cable TV company. I previously was an Audit Manager for Ernst & Whinney and hadn’t managed more than 5 people at a time. Now I had responsibility for well over 1,000.

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The Leaders Among Us

Terry Starbucker

I’m in Austin for the SXSW conference, and as usual, it’s a whirlwind of meetings, parties, more meetings, panels, more parties, and great conversations. Not the kind of place you’d expect to “see&# leadership. But if you look carefully, and listen well, you find out that there are a lot of layers here – layers of human caring and communal spirit.

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How A Single Conversation Can Supercharge Your Business

Terry Starbucker

About 6 years ago I was approached by one of my field managers about a new “callback&# program he wanted to launch in one of our cable television service areas. He wanted to have “a real person&# call a customer within 7 days of a new service installation, and have a conversation about that installation. He emphasized “conversation&# , because he wanted this to be more than just a survey call where a bunch of “check the box&# questions are asked.