Craig Anderson of NSR Business Solutions on His Journey to Master Graduate
Craig with his wife and business partners at a Milwaukee Brewers baseball game. From Left: Leah Anderson, Craig Anderson, Robert Wright and Matt Kuzba
Dear Rapport:
I recently had the privilege of completing my Rapport Leadership International master graduate journey at a private Power Communication class held at our headquarters in Sturtevant, Wisconsin. Becoming a master graduate in and of itself was very exciting for me, and this experience was made even more special by the fact that my beautiful wife, Leah was right there with me, learning and growing. Add to this the fact that 8 members of our small organization became master graduates that day, 2 close vendors became master graduates, and 2 more employees graduated their first Rapport class and it was truly an experience I will never forget.
During our graduation ceremony I heard from each of my employees as they had their master graduate shares. It struck me how personally grateful each staff member was for having the opportunity to participate in the training and to see the tremendous difference that had been made in their personal and professional lives over the last 12 months. As each staff member got up and shared it really hit me how tight knit our organization has become, we have that and a lot more to owe to the training provided by Rapport Leadership International.
Since taking my first class, Leadership Breakthrough One, in April of 2006 our company has underwent enormous change and growth. Our profits alone in 2006 were at an all time high as was our percentage of growth. In 2007, NSR has undertaken our most aggressive marketing plan in our short history. We have had a record first half, and have even become a sponsor of the Milwaukee Brewers baseball club! NSR is attracting larger clients than we have in the past and our employee’s enthusiasm for what they do instills confidence in each of them. All of these things are the result of a change in culture, a change prompted by Rapport’s training.
By changing our focus from profits and sales numbers, to the individual growth and development of our employees and the nurturing of an exciting and positive atmosphere, we have begun building a culture of loyalty and success. Rapport training started us along this path. The investment in training alone has helped our employees become more confident communicators, an important skill in a service industry, and has built up a loyalty few IT companies enjoy these days. Taking the skills that we learned in each of the classes and applying them in our day to day activities is what is taking us to the next level. Building an organization where people are excited to come to work everyday gives us an advantage when recruiting new employees. Employees that believe in what they are doing and in the company they work for do a better job, they work harder, and they help each other out. All of this trickles down to make for a satisfied client.
Rapport training has also helped our ownership, which is young by most standards, learn valuable leadership skills that may have taken decades to stumble across on our own. You can read books like Good to Great or 7 Habits and take some of the lessons to heart and begin to grow as a leader, but the experiential training Rapport offers really drives home lessons that can never be gotten from a book. As a direct result of attending Rapport training our ownership has opened its eyes to the importance of the individual. New and exciting All Company Meetings with some enthusiasm, company outings with employees, additional investments in training, and above all a higher level of communication and trust all came from our individual experiences in Leadership Breakthrough One, Leadership Breakthrough Two, and Power Communication. If you want to learn something about your leadership skills, take Leadership Breakthrough Two with your staff, I learned very quickly the bad habits I had already developed in a short leadership career and I learned just as quickly how much more successful our company can be by empowering individuals.
This training has begun something powerful within our organization. Our entire company knows that we must continue to work on building our culture around the lessons we learned in our Rapport training. It’s not enough to take the training, we must live it. As a business owner I am grateful to have been nominated for Rapport’s training. The opportunity to see the growth in my employees, my business partners, and myself has been an amazing experience. I look forward with excitement on the things to come and to share this amazing and life changing experience with every new employee, my friends, and my family. My sincerest thanks to Rapport Leadership International, its amazing employees, and trainers; for their belief in sharing their knowledge and making the world that much better.
Sincerely,
Craig Anderson – President
NSR Business Solutions
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