Evergreen Journal by Tugboat Institute

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?

If you are a parent or if you ever watch the news, you are aware that, for years now, the conversation around kids and their mental health has become louder and more urgent. The effects of social media and our internet culture, paired with an increasingly prevalent culture of achievement in and outside of schools and the astoundingly isolating experience period during and after Covid have created a generation that struggles with anxiety, depression, and a host of other challenges.   

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Dr. Denise Pope, Senior Lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Education and the co-Founder of Challenge Success, addresses this topic with a focus on potential solutions to this mental health crisis. How can we help our children build resilience and find balance and strong mental health? What practices that have become mainstream are, in fact, damaging to our young people today? 

Listen and learn what you can do to make sure your children and other young people in your life are getting what they need to grow into strong, stable adults.

Jeffrey Korzenik is an economist by profession. Outside of work, his passion is furthering the cause of Second Chance Hiring. Those two endeavors are not as disparate as they might seem. Author of Untapped Talent, Jeff has spent many years advocating for what he sees as a solution to two societal and business problems all at once - supporting programs that help identify and place the right people with felony records in the right job for them.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Jeff shares that in today’s tight talent market, which demographics tell us will not ease anytime soon, there are nevertheless 19 million people with felony records who struggle mightily to find gainful employment. Many of them never served any time in jail at all, and others have committed to turning their lives around. In the right circumstances, with the right support, they can become stellar employees.

Listen and be inspired to explore the possibility of Second Chance Hiring for your organization.

Scott White, CEO of IGS Energy, has had a front row seat to the complexity of the energy industry and to what happens when shortages occur his whole life; he grew up with a parent who ran a natural gas company. Scott believes that the changes we can expect in the coming years will be even more challenging than the last five decades. As the global demand for energy continues to grow, we will need to grow and expand out capacity to meet it, but it won't happen overnight.

In this Tugboat Institute® Talk, Scott discusses the various means by which our society might allow for a sustainable increase in energy demand while protecting grid resiliency and maintaining affordability. In particular, he shares some specific strategies business leaders can employ to protect their companies against eventual shortages and price volatility.

Listen and be inspired to think about how you and your company can innovate and tackle energy challenges.

When Steve Doerfler and his partner bought out their boss at Metalcraft in 2006, they knew that they would have to work hard and overcome obstacles to help their new company grow and thrive. Many of them, however, both professional and personal, were entirely unexpected and unique.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Steve shares his journey of leadership through the buyout, several years as President, over a decade more as CEO, and now as Chairman. Although it has not been easy, it has shaped him as a leader and, he believes, made him better.

Listen and be inspired to turn your challenges into vehicles to strength and transformation.

For CEOs, and even more so for company founders, the prospect of stepping out of leadership, handing the reins over to your successor, and letting go of the company you have poured your heart into for years can be a challenge. Especially for Evergreen® leaders, who tend to be humble and gritty, their work has been a labor of love; they are so heavily invested in the success of their team, their team’s families, and their company that trusting it will be ok without them is almost akin to watching children go out into the world independently. But it must and will happen to all leaders.

In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Kris Maynard, founder and Executive Chairman of Cathedral Holdings, shares his own experience around this moment in his leadership journey. As a founder, he chose to step into the role of Executive Chair first, to ensure that the transition was smooth and gradual, but the end result is the same; someone else is in charge now. His story will shed light on this process for leaders who are looking toward this transition, and while his lessons learned will not make it easy, they will certainly help prevent surprises and prepare you for some of the more unexpected aspects. 

Listen and be inspired to prepare for and thoughtfully shape your own transition out of leadership, when the time comes.

In 2022, at Tugboat Institute® Gathering of Teams, Tugboat CEO Dave Whorton shared a talk entitled On Purpose. At the time, we were approaching our ten-year anniversary and our Evergreen® community had grown and matured a great deal. Everything Dave, and all of us at Tugboat Institute, had learned from our incredible members and friends over the years had confirmed Dave’s thinking about the power of the Evergreen company back in 2013, when he set out to create Tugboat. As he honed his vision and planning for the future of this important group, he reconsidered the Evergreen 7Ps® principles and decided it was time to revise our definition of Purpose.

We have decided to re-share this important talk two years later, because our community continues to grow and our circle of friends and followers is growing quickly as well. Purpose lies at the heart of what it means to be an Evergreen leader and company. Whether you watch this as a re-fresh, as a boost and confirmation for the hard work you are doing leading your company, or as an introduction to the values and thinking that collectively guides us, it will be an inspirational twenty minutes.

Listen and be (re-)inspired by the power of the Evergreen movement.

Evergreen® companies, who value their teams and put People First, believe deeply in the importance of a strong culture. However, the critical value of a strong culture is not simply a matter of faith. In this Tugboat Institute® talk, Oliver Staehelin shares concrete data around the specific, strategic advantages a strong culture can give a company. In a world where competition for great talent is not going to ease anytime soon, this is not an optional undertaking for the company that wants to retain a strong team over the long term.

Oliver was an early member of Tugboat Institute, while he was leading the culture assessment company he co-founded with Stanford Professor Charles O’Reilly, Pomello. His early career and all of his subsequent work confirmed for him that culture is not a ‘soft’ topic, nor are its benefits immeasurable. 

Listen and be inspired to transform your company’s culture into one of its greatest strategic advantages.