Jeff Patterson is the CEO and founder of Gaggle, an EdTech software company that exists to protect students in schools. As a company founder, he has fought hard to create and build Gaggle, and along with it an entire industry, and he has remained committed to the Evergreen® path throughout. However, as committed as he is to the Evergreen 7Ps® principles, he has had a nagging feeling for years that he needs more than a wonderful culture to survive for the long term.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jeff shares his own journey toward creating a meaningful and effective strategy for Gaggle. After searching in vain for the “right” strategy, he embarked on his own learning journey, reading many books and talking with many leaders about the ingredients of an effective strategy. Here, he shares his learnings and explains why, in his eyes, culture is important, but without a strong strategy, it’s not enough.

Liusten and be inspired to dig deeper in your efforts to create a strategy that is just right for your company.

When he was still researching and teaching at university in Germany, Professor Hermann Simon undertook to study the landscape of market leaders in exports around the world and in different industries, with the goal of identifying the characteristics of the companies that managed to find their way into that selective group. What he discovered surprised him; it was not the giants he expected who occupied the top spots. It was, instead, predominately middle market companies who remained relatively unknown who were the clear leaders. Many of them came from Germany.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Professor Simon shares key learnings from his work on his subsequent book, Hidden Champions: Lessons from 500 of the World's Best Unknown Companies. The Hidden Champions are different from Evergreen® companies, but they share some important and interesting characteristics. Professor Simon went a step beyond simply articulating his theory on Hidden Champions. Following publication of the book, he left the university and founded his own company which, following the steps he outlined in the book, he has grown into a Hidden Champion itself.

Listen to this talk, consider the characteristics of the Hidden Champions, and see if any of them might help your company.

When he was young, Jeff Chungath was torn between a career in medicine and one in engineering. So he compromised and became a biomedical engineer! With deep, combined clinical and technical expertise, Telligen, the company he leads, helps its clients improve the quality and value of the health care solutions they offer to their employees. Thanks to his training and his natural inclination to think like an engineer, Jeff has created a superb culture of continuous improvement at Teligen, ensuring that feedback loops exist at every level of their work. In turn, this enables them to be nimble and to tackle inefficiencies as soon as they arise.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jeff shares what this looks like at Telligen, and how it has helped them stay ahead of the curve, innovate constantly, and foster an energetic and healthy culture of innovation. A 100% Employee Owned Company, their mission is to improve health outcomes for everyone, and through their careful and precise processes, they are able to make steady and remarkable progress toward this goal.

Listen and be inspired to re-evaluate your internal feedback loops; could they be even better, and drive even better results?