On My Mind
You might not know it, but the world is witnessing one of the most amazing feat’s of individual performance. Chess is considered by many as the ultimate game of strategy and the most challenging chess tournament in history is being played in St. Louis as I write this newsletter. Six of the top ten ranked players in the world are playing each other twice (ten rounds) in the 2014 Sinquefield Cup. Fabiano Caruana, 22, born in the U.S., but living in Italy, has unbelievably won his first six games. Here is his historic streak: defeated Topalov while playing with black pieces; defeated Vachier-Lagrave while playing with white pieces; defeated #1 ranked Carlsen while playing with black pieces; defeated Aronian while playing with white pieces; defeated Nakamura while playing with black pieces; and defeated Topalov for a second time while playing with white pieces. There are four games left in the tournament for Caruana—I can’t wait to see if he performs a sweep!

Interesting Stories
When in doubt—try SCREAMING! Steve Ballmer, the former CEO of Microsoft, recently purchased the Los Angeles Clippers National Basketball Association team for $2,000,000,000. Ballmer became infamous for his tendency to SCREAM at high-profile Microsoft events. I’ve never admired the SCREAMING style of leadership—whether it was one of my coaches or one of my bosses. SCREAMING leaders have been rare in my career, thankfully. According to an August 18, 2014 post on NBA.com (check out the video), “Sweating, clapping and shouting until he was nearly horse, Steve Ballmer introduced himself to Los Angeles Clippers fans at a rally on Monday celebrating his new ownership of the NBA team.” For all those associated with the Clippers organization, you might want to purchase earplugs. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

Company News
The Advanced Strategic Improvement Practices Conference will be held September 24, 2014 at the BayView Event Center in Excelsior, MN. There will be fourteen outstanding presenters this year and the brochure is available by selecting ANNUAL CONFERENCE on the home page of this website. I will be making two presentations at the International Conference on Quality in Tokyo, Japan mid-October. One presentation is titled, “Trend of Data Analysis in the U.S.” and the other presentation is titled, “Applying the Four Student Model During the SDCA Cycle.” The paper associated with the latter presentation will be available on this website in late October.

Intriguing Reads
The second edition of a very useful book by Heather Townsend was just published: Business Networking: How to Use the Power of Online and Offline Networking for Business Success. Networking has been identified by many as a “must have” professional and leadership development skill. This book is filled with practical concepts, tools, and techniques to strengthen your business relationships. Happy networking!