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Success Stories

"They offer insights I couldn't get anywhere else."

Ben Waldshan
Data Warehouse Corporation
Boca Raton
Allan Stolee-Chair

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Meeting of the Minds

A month has passed and I’m still enjoying the results of my first official Vistage group meeting, an amazing workshop on delegating. I’m now more productive at the office and, more importantly, I’m no longer putting in those dreaded 15 hour days. (Well, I’m still putting in a few of those, but not nearly as many!)

The workshop with the guest expert was an undeniable success. Now it’s time for our first true group session…with just the group. Members helping members. Vistage calls this the Executive Session.

Almost instantly I got a sense of the power of the group as a collective body. What impressed me the most was how different we all are. That’s by design. Everyone brings a different perspective to provide a genuine 360 degree perspective to issues that members need advice on. (Of all the many valuable things you’re sure to find in Vistage, this might be your favorite part of membership!)

The fact is, Vistage groups couldn’t be more diverse. Don’t be surprised to find a CEO who’s an Ivy League graduate sitting next to a CEO who graduated from the school of hard knocks.

A CEO who’s the fifth generation to run his family’s produce business might be found sharing ideas with a CEO pushing the envelope at a two-year-old Biotech start up.

I wouldn’t be shocked to hear about a meeting where a CEO of an all-organic restaurant chain gave brilliant advice to a CEO of an industrial chemical company.

Amazing exchanges take place. Opinions are expressed and analyzed. A plan of action is developed for each individual member. You walk in unsure. You walk out confident.

That’s what Vistage is all about.

In my opinion, having a group brain trust (your own board of directors) to help solve individual problems and concerns is a Godsend. I was yet again realizing there’s no other organization quite like Vistage.

In my group, we have a young, female entrepreneur whose company is the regional leader in green contracting. We have a seasoned CEO of a company that has been around for decades producing letterhead and business cards for lawyers. My company produces cutting edge, high end marketing tools. Another member makes “Economy Dentures.” Now that’s diversity of thought. I can say that in my first group session, each of these members, and the other group members offered solutions, advice and insight, I never could have obtained alone. If you’re like me, you tend to spend much of your time with people within your industry. In marketing, we all tend to think similarly about the business side of things. Having this sudden fresh perspective and objective 3rd party view on everything related to my business was incredible.

(I’ll get into the actual specifics of my first group session, in my next blog.)

In leaving my first true group session, I’m blown away that no two CEOs are even close to the same in so many regards. Yet we are all united by a two common traits. First, we all have a near insatiable thirst to learn more. Second, we all sincerely enjoy helping each other. And, in so doing, we’re helping ourselves to be the best CEOs we can be.