Mastering Business Strategy - Lessons from Delivering Client Value Course #worldclassservice

So when I was a senior manager, we had a course called Delivering Client Value. And so in this course, what they did is we hired retired CXOs of companies, CEOs, CSOs, CMOs. And we hired them and flew them in for this week-long class in St. Charles, Illinois. So, if you think about that, the price tag on that is like, this is like the ex-CEO of AT&T. You know, it's like that caliber folks, right? So, it's like, whoo. And so, they flew us all in. It was about a class of 40. And so, we broke into 5 teams. And through the course of the week, it was like a case competition, but think about it as a week-long case competition. 8 to 5. Sound like fun? Yeah, so we get out there and so if you're a senior manager going to training in St. Charles, it's kind of like coming here to Belfast. Like, let's go out. Let's go have pizza. So day one we got in. Everybody's like, oh man, we get to take a break from our work. So in the morning, they introduced us to the case. They said, you need to prep and then at 3 o'clock you're gonna have your first meeting with your client. So we all prepped and everything. We were just kinda like, yeah, you know, this is what we're used to. We can do this and everything like that. We had the meeting at 3 o'clock and the clients all ripped us like bad. In fact, one of the teams, the client kicked them out of the room. Literally, like 8 minutes in. You're not prepared. Get out. They're like, OK, but this is a training thing. Get out. And they're like, I think he's serious. He's like, get out. And they got out. And that rippled through the whole class. Everybody's like, holy shit. This thing's real. And I know you guys are very similar. All of a sudden— And by the way, at the end of every day, they ranked each of the teams. So it was point, you know, you got points. And that team was like, thump, bottom. It was like, we were called the Blue Monkeys. So they ranked us and so at the end of the day, you knew you were gonna get up on a scoreboard. It's like, and so all of a sudden we're just off our butts and on our toes.