Who is John Spence?

Making the very complex awesomely simple is not merely a catchphrase, it is John Spence’s mission in life. Driven by insatiable curiosity to understand what it takes to achieve and sustain excellence in business and life, he is a leading authority in the areas of competitive business strategy, high-performance teams, and leadership development. With well over 100 corporate training engagements each year, Spence is one of the most highly sought-after executive educators in America.

Spence’s unique strengths as a speaker and executive educator lie in his ability to synthesize information relevant to the needs of his clients, and to present that information in a dynamic way. He does not present “canned” programs—every seminar, workshop, and speech is custom tailored to help clients achieve specific objectives. Spence presents information with the energy and passion of someone who is dedicated to helping businesses achieve excellence.

Formerly a CEO of one of the Rockefeller Foundations, Spence has consulted with and delivered workshops to more than 300 organizations worldwide, including several dozen Fortune 500 companies. He relishes his work “in the trenches” with these firms, and keeps current with new trends and ideas by reading over 100 business books each year and dozens of magazines, journals, and white papers each month.

Spence has lectured on strategy and leadership to students at more than 90 universities, including Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cornell, and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. He currently serves as Special Advisor to Rawls College of Business at Texas Tech University.

Recently, Spence was chosen by the prestigious TEC (The Executive Committee) Group to be a resource speaker for their CEO roundtable series, where he has led specialized business improvement seminars for senior executives from more than 250 companies.

Spence earns respect and trust as a management advisor based upon his deep knowledge of what it takes to achieve business excellence, his passionate commitment to helping his clients, his ability to synthesize information and customize his presentations, and his fast-paced and engaging presentation style.

 

Why this seminar?

If you've ever found yourself asking...

•  How can I convince our key people to think more strategically?

•  How can I motivate my team and give them the business tools they need to make our company world class?

•  How can I encourage my people to take responsibility for the success of our company and their own careers?

•  Where can I find the proven tactics and breakout ideas that will help my team take our company to the next level?

We have the answer.


Achieving Business Excellence...

...is an intensive one-day workshop designed to shake up the thinking of your key managers by exposing them to the most innovative ideas, tools, and methods for improving the revenue, profitability, and market share of your organization. This no-fluff program not only delivers valuable insights, but also challenges participants to assess their current performance and make strong commitments to realistic and measurable improvements.
The seminar can be presented at your location or off site, whichever you prefer.

Spence developed the workshop based on his own extensive personal business experience and more than 10 years of in-depth research and rigorous benchmarking studies of the best practices at top corporations worldwide.

In the past five years, Spence has presented Achieving Business Excellence to more than 200 CEOs of companies with revenue ranging from $2 million to $250 million, and to teams from organizations such as State Farm, Northrop Grumman, Pepsi, SunTrust, Tropicana, Fidelity Information Services, Frito-Lay, Kinko’s, and Alltel.

These businesses chose Achieving Business Excellence because they wanted realistic answers to their questions, given by an instructor with the credentials and credibility to ensure that their leaders would take the information seriously.

Before the seminar

Participants are asked to take a specially-designed, 30-40 question Organizational Effectiveness Audit using a simple,
web-based survey tool.

The audit focuses on a number of key factors that Spence has identified as keys to building a company that is not just successful, but great.

The audit is totally confidential. Spence compiles all findings into an Executive Overview for use during the second part of the seminar (see details, below, in What Can Participants Expect?).

Here is an example of an Organizational Effectiveness Audit.

What can participants expect?

Achieving Business Excellence is a fast-paced program that combines lectures, group discussions, individual exercises, and group workshops.

The first four hours of the class provide a comprehensive understanding of the fundamentals needed to pursue, achieve, and sustain business excellence. Attendees delve into this material using a custom workbook full of clear examples and proven processes from companies such as Microsoft, Dell, GE, IBM, Apple, Intel, Disney, Wal-Mart, Toyota, Allied Signal, Porsche, and other respected firms.

Because Spence has had multi-year working relationships with the leaders of some of these top companies, he peppers his presentation with personal anecdotes, specific examples, and insights that can help your team apply innovative ideas to your current situation.

Throughout the first half of the workshop, participants take several short audits to compare your company’s current performance with the key factors responsible for success of the benchmark businesses. The results of these audits are typically startling, and help participants realize where there is significant room for improvement within your organization.

At the end of this first session, participants use what they have learned to develop work-related Personal Action Plans that they can implement immediately.

The second half of the day is focused on productive teamwork. The group is broken into small teams that are charged with developing recommendations for specific actions that can be taken to improve your company’s success. To complete this task, teams review and discuss information presented in the first session, their members’ Personal Action Plans, and the findings of the Organizational Effectiveness Audit.

Conversation and debate among the teams is often spirited, as members compare and contrast their various insights and scores and explore the findings of the audit. This part of the program is designed to force groups to put difficult problems front and center, and to develop specific plans to address those problems.

At the end of the second session, each team presents its ideas and recommendations to the entire group. During this process, Spence helps to synthesize all the presentations into one coherent and compelling plan for positive change in your organization.

 

 

What are the results?

At the end of the day, the members of your team will:

•  Be familiar with dozens of new ideas and strategies from top businesses that can improve the revenues, profitability and market share of your company;

•  Recognize that there are many great opportunities for real improvements in your business;

•  Be motivated to teach and implement these ideas throughout your organization;

•  Identify specific things that they must do every day to be more effective team members and leaders;

•  Have a clear understanding of how critically important disciplined execution and high levels of accountability are to the success of your company and their own careers; and

•  Develop specific action steps to put what they have learned to immediate use.

Tangible deliverables, customized for your business

To better understand the particular issues and challenges your company is facing, Spence interviews key people in your firm. He uses the information gleaned from these interviews to customize the seminar to meet your specific needs.

Spence develops an Executive Overview of the findings of the web-based Organizational Effectiveness Audit, and delivers the results during the workshop.

To create a custom workbook that addresses your situation, Spence incorporates a number of carefully-chosen articles from Harvard Business Review, Strategy & Business, and Knowledge@Wharton.

Each participant receives a copy of Spence’s book,
Excellence by Design: Leadership.

Spence follows up the seminar with a memorandum to management that conveys his observations and recommendations.

If you choose, another Organizational Effectiveness Audit can be deployed four months after the session. The follow-up audit assesses the impact of the program and identifies specific areas of improvement or concern.

 

Similar Seminars

John also offers two other workshops of very similar
style and structure - Leadership Development
and High-Performance Teams.

 

To learn more or to schedule a seminar:
please contact Sheila Spence at:

352.339.0142
or email her at sheila@johnspence.com

We look forward to the opportunity
to be of service to you and your company.

For more information on other courses and services offered,
please click here to visit his website. www.johnspence.com