Breakthrough Companies and the YPO

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After my visit to Winona, my two compatriots from Winona State University and I made a late night drive back to Minneapolis so that I could speak early the next morning to the Twin Cities chapter of the Young Presidents Organization. For those of you who have read my book, you know that I analyzed the performance of every company ever to make the Inc. 500, and I selected the nine top performing companies in terms of growth and profitability over a 22-year period. Amazingly, four of the top nine performers (which I refer to in the book as "breakthrough companies" were either founded by or run by YPOers.

The twin cities chapter of YPO is a particularly strong one -- around 300 members and their managers showed up for a four-hour workshop I led entitled "Getting Breakthrough Performance." What an amazing group of people -- literally the who's who of the Minnesota growth company community. They were, of course, proud to learn that their state was the only state in the U.S. that contributed two companies to my list of nine top performers. Tom Tiller, the CEO of breakthrough company Polaris was in the audience, and we had a chance to chat briefly. He is one of the most gifted leaders I have met.