At this year’s National Religious Broadcasters convention in Nashville, Bill Marquard will speak on Choose or Lose: Leadership in the New Economy, applying lessons from his book Wal-Smart: waht it Really Takes to profit in a Wal-Mart World to the specifics of the broadcast industry. Leslie Marquard will lead a discussion on how to effectively create a service-oriented culture within a media organization.

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WalSmart author Bill Marquard is the featured speaker for GMA’s Broadcast Leadership Bootcamp:

CHOOSE OR LOSE: Leadership in the New Economy is the theme for the Broadcast Leadership Boot Camp. We live in an economy where giants dominate many industries. Bill Marquard (Marble Leadership Partners) reveals the secrets to survive and thrive in any industry with a dominant player Рor even become the dominant player yourself! Drawing on his experience advising major organizations such as Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Walt Disney World, Meijer, and the Department of Homeland Security, Bill’s interactive discussion provides practical leadership insights on what it takes to profit in today’s economy.

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In providing a new level of convenience, low price, and efficiency, Wal-Mart has substantially changed the rules of our global economy, the customer expectations for every business–and the ways your organization must deliver to keep up.

William Marquard designed Wal-Mart’s first-ever strategic planning process and ran it for three and a half years–then spent the next seven years competing against that strategy as a Fortune 200 executive and as an advisor to other firms. Marquard’s insights from both inside and outside Wal-Mart enable leaders of all organizations–public and private, manufacturing and service, local and international, large and small–to respond to the challenges posed by dominant industry players like Wal-Mart.

Wal-Smart is not just a book about Wal-Mart. Wal-Smart starts by exploring the elements of Wal-Mart’s success that few people see: its productivity loop, its powerful process disciplines, and its hidden management “DNA.” It then crafts compelling strategies that any company in any industry can use to survive and thrive in this brave new Wal-Mart world.

Click here to visit the Walsmart website.

Time planning is increasingly gaining importance in today’s finance industry–and it’s touching every area, from HR and business strategy to marketing and sales.
By Sheryl Nance-Nash

EXCERPT: Map out a plan When it comes to business strategy, it’s about being realistic. “Strategy is the elimination of options,” says Bill Marquard of Marble Leadership Partners, a Chicago, Ill. firm that helps national and global corporations set competitive strategies. “Most companies have many more ideas than they have the time and resources to pursue. Therefore, one must set and define priorities. Leadership must ask, ‘Where will we put the most effort?’ and ‘What are the five things we will get right this year?” Focus on a handful of strategies, and once those are complete you can move other priorities into the queue,” says Marquard.

Furthermore, he adds, “We’ve found that when we sit down with a leadership team, the most effective strategic plan is one that enables them to say no to an idea by testing the idea against the strategic plan. How does it fit in?”

Often, companies make the mistake of having a strategy that is too broad. “You have to negotiate, to assess what are the strengths and weaknesses of what’s being proposed,” he says. But everyone must have the same detailed fact-based information to make decisions, “We want people working from more than just opinion.”

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Tapping future talent is important for any business, but it takes years–not weeks–to train new leaders. Here’s how you start.

By Heidi Russell Rafferty
Wells Fargo: Your Business Advisor Online

EXCERPT: “It has to be an intentional investment,” says Leslie O. Marquard, chairman, CEO and managing director of the Winnetka, Ill.-based business consulting firm Marble Leadership Partners Inc. “You establish the goals, and the person who is coached agrees to the goals and says, ‘I will report back to you as I’m achieving the goals.’” After the person has transitioned into the new leadership role, continue the coaching to give them a safety net.

Marquard coaches Collin Lambert, director of marketing and promotions at WMBI, a 30-person radio station in Chicago. Lambert sought out Marquard as a coach because he eventually wants to become a station manager. Marquard encourages him to scrutinize how he manages each day’s minutiae. He takes a mental inventory of how he handles each crisis or interaction.

“You begin to learn about yourself–how you handle things, how you deal with stress and conflict,” Lambert says. “It’s a really detailed way of walking through the daily process.”

Marquard also facilitated a mentoring relationship between Lambert and his current station manager, who has been in the radio business for many years. “He’s totally supportive of me and helps me learn different issues,” Lambert says of his mentor. “He’s told me, ‘I want to train up people who can replace us and know how it all works.’”

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