World Class Value: Leadership Excellence in the Exponential Age

By Rob Faw

Transform your leadership and shape visionary organizations with World Class Value: Leadership Excellence in the Exponential Age. Uncover the keys to high-performance leadership in this indispensable guide, designed to help you excel in competitive environments. Rob's innovative Value-Driven Framework simplifies complex concepts like systems thinking and contextual frameworks, making elite leadership skills accessible to all. Immerse yourself in a rich collection of strategies uniquely tailored to empower leaders at every level to think broadly and act decisively in today's ever-changing world. 

Drawing from his extraordinary journey from a working-class neighborhood in Washington, D.C., to becoming a pioneering leader in multimedia technologies, Faw encapsulates the essence of high-performance leadership and the creation of world-class organizations. As an experienced executive leader, entrepreneur, and board-certified master coach, Rob infuses his relentless passion for peak performance on every page. 

Rob’s book dives deep into systems thinking, contextual frameworks, and organizational innovation, crucial for anyone aspiring to grow their leadership and develop world-class organizations. His journey is a testament to his dedication, strategic acumen, and transformative insights. Faw's narrative extends through various roles and industries, from his early days as a newspaper boy to his remarkable achievements as a CEO and a pioneer in digital transformation. 

World Class Value encapsulates Faw's philosophy of high-performance leadership and building world-class organizations. It thoroughly explores digital transformation, strategic agility, and customer-centric value creation. Faw challenges conventional business wisdom, advocating for a new leadership paradigm that responds dynamically to the market's exponential changes.

Jason Clement, CEO of Sports Facilities Companies (SFC), endorses the book, emphasizing its practical applicability. During Faw's business, executive, and leadership coaching, SFC has witnessed significant growth, transforming into a national leader in its industry. This real-world impact illustrates the potency of Faw's strategies, timeless systems thinking, contextual frameworks, and enriched insights for those leaders who want to compete and win.

World Class Value sets the stage for a world where digital transformation and exponential change redefine competition and leadership. Faw masterfully connects these global trends to everyday business practices, emphasizing the importance of strategic agility and customer-centric value creation. He offers a fresh perspective on leadership excellence and being a world-class organization, challenging traditional notions and advocating for a new paradigm of leadership and organizational excellence.

Readers will find inspiration in Faw's accomplishments as an Ironman, 70-time marathoner, and doctoral candidate researching organizational leadership. His dedication to continuous learning and self-improvement resonates through his writing and podcast, “The School of Empowerment.” Rob invites his readers on a growth voyage, empowering them to unleash their full potential and achieve unprecedented business success.

More than a business book, World Class Value is a journey through the complexities of leadership, a testimony to Faw's expertise, and a roadmap for those aspiring for personal growth and impacting their businesses and industries. This book is a must-read for leaders at every level and anyone passionate about developing high-performance leadership and world-class organizations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Release date: May 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781977274625

Book preview

World Class Value

Leadership Excellence in the Exponential Age

All Rights Reserved.

Copyright © 2024 Rob Faw

v5.0

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

World Class Value

Foreword

My Story

Introduction

Chapter 1: Characteristics of World Class Value

Chapter 2: Thinking Globally for Competitive Survival

Chapter 3: So You Want To Be A Market Leader

Chapter 4: Customer Satisfaction Is Everything

Chapter 5: Do We Really Hear Our Customers

Chapter 6: Perception Is Reality

Chapter 7: TQM Is a Tool

Chapter 8: Products and Services Value

Chapter 9: Lead, Follow, or Fail

Chapter 10: Believe with a Passion

Chapter 11: Strategy Is No Accident

Chapter 12: Create Conditions for Success

Chapter 13: World Class Value Measurement Model

Chapter 14: The Bar Just Got Higher

Chapter 15: In Pursuit of World Class Value

Chapter 16: Transform the World

Acknowledgments

Suggested Readings

Foreword

In the bustling landscape of today’s global economy that affects every business in the world, where the pace of change is not just rapid but exponential, it is a challenge for any leader to compete, win, and thrive. In this context, Rob Faw’s book, World Class Value: Leadership Excellence in the Exponential Age, emerges as a timely read and an essential compass for navigating these turbulent times.

Over the past seven years, as CEO of Sports Facilities Companies (SFC), I have had the privilege of working closely with Rob as my executive coach. His insights and strategies have been instrumental in helping to guide SFC through significant growth, from a humble beginning to a formidable presence with several thousand employees serving communities nationwide. Rob’s understanding of business dynamics, particularly in the digital age, has been the cornerstone of our strategic planning and execution.

Rob’s book clearly defines what it means to be a world-class leader and organization in a world marked by digital transformation and the blurring of industry lines. His concept of World Class Value, as revealed in this book, is not just a theoretical framework; it is a practical guide that has directly contributed to the success and expansion of SFC.

Rob’s approach, focusing on adding value in every interaction and transaction, aligns perfectly with the ethos at SFC. His principles have helped us understand our market and customers and continuously innovate to meet their evolving needs. Running alongside Rob, we embrace change, not as a threat but as an opportunity to redefine our industry and stay ahead of the curve. This book distills Rob’s profound understanding of business trends and leadership. It reflects his business acumen and ability to foster and mentor leadership qualities in others. His influence on SFC has been transformative, enabling us to envision a path to success and walk it with confidence and resilience.

World Class Value is an indispensable resource for anyone looking to understand the complexities of business in the Exponential Age, navigate its challenges, and emerge as a world-class leader in their field. His book is a testament to Rob’s expertise and reflects the practical, impactful guidance he has provided to SFC and me personally over the years. As you delve into this book, prepare to be enlightened, inspired, and equipped to lead your organization toward becoming a world-class entity in today’s ever-evolving global marketplace.

Jason Clement

CEO, Sports Facilities Companies (SFC)

My Story

My story began when I was a young boy in Washington, DC, growing up in a working-class neighborhood with a father who worked three jobs to provide for our family and a stay-at-home mother raising my four sisters and me. I was an above-average student and coachable player who loved competitive sports, especially baseball, football, and basketball. I was active in my church and boys club, and my first job was delivering newspapers for the Washington Post so I could earn $4.50 to pay for half of my Converse Chuck Taylor sneakers, a deal I made with my mom because we did not have the financial resources to do anything otherwise.

After graduating from high school, playing a couple of years of college basketball, marrying my high school sweetheart as a teenager, and joining the U.S. Air Force at the end of the Vietnam War, I was amazed by pretty much everything in the world, including my first airplane flight at age nineteen en route to my military basic training. Following a brief stint with Allstate Insurance as an operations supervisor, chief accountant for a publicly traded restaurant chain, financial director for a technology company, living and working with my family in Canada and England for over four years, and traveling around the world as a director of business development for a new broadband technology invented at AT&T’s Bell Laboratories, my fascination for becoming world-class and working with world-class organizations grew daily.

My biggest customer at AT&T recruited me to create an international business for their growing interest in serving customers worldwide. I accepted the offer and started with no products, customers, team, or distribution channels, with worldwide responsibilities for every country outside the United States. Initially, I was alone and had to work fast at building a world-class team that was up for developing a world-class company. The challenge was exciting, and the execution was difficult, but I did not spend much time thinking about how hard it was. I focused on being the best and helping our team and company compete and win.

We competed against much bigger, better-resourced multinational companies like Alcatel, Ericsson, and Fujitsu. Despite our David versus Goliath environment, we earned the right to be one of the best in the world at helping communication service providers like British Telecom, Bell Canada, and Telecom Italia implement an innovative technology that would usher in broadband communications and change everything. Our team on two continents developed the world’s first multimedia technology system for delivering broadband services in the telephone network. As president of global operations and, subsequently, chief executive officer, our team grew the business significantly and served customers worldwide to contribute to helping our company go public. Subsequently, I was president and vice chairman of a Scotland-based software company that sold to Cisco, and then as CEO, I ran software companies in Silicon Valley and England that were devastated by the global economic tsunami that followed the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

The global economic collapse, especially in the technology and financial sectors, hit me and others hard. Our once viable venture capital-backed businesses were jolted through existential circumstances, resulting in lost customers, investment capital, and team members. We were shaken to the core. Going back in history, this is what COVID-19 felt like, without massive government interventions, a ubiquitous internet, social media, or collaborative communication technologies. We were isolated, and it was horrible. Economic crises come and go, and leaders face real, perceived, and existential threats daily. How are you going to respond? While not wishing ill will on anyone, I believe everyone should have an occasion to stare deeply into the abyss and learn more about their character, values, and capacity to bounce back from devastating circumstances within and outside their control. Devastation can show up in our health, relationships, or business. Life is tough. Move on. While my challenges were painful, they provided great learning experiences and a foundation for persevering, growing, and adapting my God-given gifts and talents for what’s next.

Today, I am a board-certified master Christian life coach passionate about dynamically empowering businesses, executives, and leaders for generational impact. I am also an entrepreneur, a seventy-time marathoner, and a doctoral candidate researching organizational leadership at Liberty University. Twenty years ago, I earned a scholarship for my master’s degree in global leadership from the University of San Diego, and twenty-five years prior to that, I finished my undergraduate business degree from the University of South Florida, with stops along the way at Florida International University and St. Petersburg Jr. College. Most of my education has been after working hours, and that mindset and practice continues today. I love learning, especially related to high-performance leadership and developing world-class organizations.

Everyone should read this book to grow their leadership and, for many, develop world-class organizations. You will learn more about what it takes to win and the risks of losing in a competitive environment. During all my years and miles of travel working with thousands of people and organizations worldwide, I remind myself daily that companies, leaders, and teams are working smarter, harder, and more diligently than ever to be the best and, at the same time, compete, win, and threaten the existential viability of their competitors. This stark reality of winning and losing is sobering for me. There is no option but growth, value, and being world-class. World Class Value can be challenging and is not for the faint of heart. However, read this book to learn more about systems thinking, contextual frameworks, and insights that can move the needle.

What we once knew as the Information Age is today more of an Exponential Age inclusive of rapidly developing digital transformations like quantum computing, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. The teachings from this book have applications for leaders at all levels working in small, medium, and large organizations worldwide. World Class Value businesses can be found everywhere. Current and future leaders who strive to perform at elevated levels, provide value, and build world-class organizations can learn, compete, and win with World Class Value. God bless you all. Game on!

Introduction

What in the world is happening in today’s dynamically changing economy? Digital transformation is exponentially pushing businesses worldwide to alter their size and operations at an unprecedented rate. Verizon continues to drastically right-size its workforce. Comcast has acquired Sky in the United Kingdom, and AT&T has spun off Warner Media. Deutsche Telekom has acquired T-Mobile and Sprint. Amazon is on a worldwide acquisition spree, having scooped up Whole Foods and merging with MGM Studios. Soon, the former diverse array of companies in various industries will be consolidated into a handful of mega-corporations offering a spectrum of services.

The exponential speed of change in most industries prompts companies to revisit their business strategies and foster a revival in leadership with a demand for digital innovation. Whole industries converge as governments contemplate the merits of digital transformation and strategy in the Exponential Age. Business-to-business e-commerce is predicted to explode from around $8 trillion in 2020 to over $20 trillion by 2026. The internet continues to revolutionize everything, with more than three hundred million people in the United States online in 2022.

Have you ever sat in a meeting, and someone asked about the meaning of world-class? In athletic competition, it is simple to gauge. We have the FIFA World Cup, the Olympics, and international sporting events. These competitions provide a yardstick for the top competitors to determine who can be considered world-class. However, how would anyone in the business world know if they encountered an elite leader or a world-class organization? There is business competition, and it is conducted in every city, state, and country worldwide. However, determining victors and losers is challenging due to the intricacies of coordinating diverse groups of people, systems, and processes. Stock markets can be an indicator, but even with all its complexities, the stock market does not measure beyond shareholder value.

How about strategic planning? In the 2010s, Netflix focused on creating a global community of users with little regard for near-term financial results and bypassed pioneers like Blockbuster. For many companies, however, strategic planning is a financially driven exercise that bears no resemblance to the reality of the marketplace. It has often become an annual reconsideration of tactics for next year’s financial targets rather than assessing the critical conditions necessary to compete and thrive in a global marketplace. Because of pervasive competitive threats from start-up companies and the globalization of businesses, companies can no longer afford to focus solely on revenue growth from existing markets.

World Class Value organizations like Amazon, Microsoft, and several others are well-known for creating new products and services that customers want, at the price they want, and at a time that meets their requirements. When was the last time a company had a shared vision of what it means to be the best in the world in delivering products on time to market? I contend that companies universally