The Business Record brought back one of our most popular and informative events ever – 90 Ideas in 90 Minutes – on Sept. 8 at the Hilton Garden Inn West Des Moines.

Nine leaders from nine of Central Iowa’s most successful businesses shared 10 of their company’s internal programs and initiatives – both big and small – that can be applied to any business.

We compiled their ideas into a publication that will be inserted in the Sept. 16 issue of the Business Record. The ideas aim to help you and your business learn the best strategies for improving employee engagement, impacting employee wellness, marketing your company effectively and improving efficiency. 

We had our senior staff writers peruse the 90 ideas and pick out nine of their favorites.

We’re sure the ideas will not only be inspirational, but also serve as a spark for new ideas that you can shape to your own liking and implement in your office. 

– Chris Conetzkey, editor of the Business Record

Sandy Hatfield-Clubb, Director of Athletics, Drake University

IDEA #8 – Intentionality
The Bulldog Way is intentionally part of the Drake Athletics experience. It starts in the recruiting process for student-athletes, coaches and staff. Each person receives a Bulldog Way Playbook and engages in continuing education designed to teach excellence with integrity through sport. The ultimate goal is for Bulldog student-athletes to become the most highly sought graduates in the country.

Laura Jackson, Executive Vice President, Wellmark Blue Cross and Blue Shield

IDEA #20 – Member Loyalty Index
As a mutual insurance company, our policyholders (customers) are our shareholders. In order to ensure all employees are aligned with our customers and have a common source of feedback, we created a measure called the Member Loyalty Index (MLI). Our customers are surveyed every day so that we can better understand their experience with us. Ultimately, we want to understand from members whether they would stay with us, and whether they would recommend us. We understand that every interaction members have with us impacts their perceptions of us, and so we receive feedback about every touchpoint. This also allows us to identify where improvement is needed. Fundamentally, a member’s loyalty to Wellmark is the result of the cumulative experiences they’ve had with us. For this reason, the MLI is really the result of three simple questions posed to our customers:

1. How easy is it to do business with us? (Effort.)
2. How well informed do you feel about your benefits and services? (Education.)
3. Overall, what is your impression of Wellmark? (Emotion.)

The results of these three questions provide us with one number that is updated monthly for all employees to see, and it’s 60 percent of everyone’s annual incentive program. MLI is the ultimate alignment in ensuring that all employees keep our customers top of mind all day, every day.

Nora Everett, President of Retirement and Income Solutions, Principal Financial Group Inc.

IDEA #24 – Jam sessions
Hold “Code Jam” and “Business Jam” sessions to drive innovation and problem solving in a fast-moving, focused environment. IT professionals and others set aside a dedicated amount of time (for example, three days or a week) to work together on specific problems or challenges. The teams move to an open, collaborative workspace. Projects include technology solutions that save employees and customers time and hassle or design solutions for new products. 

Jeff Russell, President and CEO, Delta Dental of Iowa

IDEA #33 – Map vs. GPS: Look around 
While the GPS is an extremely efficient tool in helping us get to where we are going, a good old paper map allows us to see the big picture. This is true in business as well. If we only rely on the technology and management tools, we’ll stay focused on the “blue line” rather than looking at the bigger opportunities that might be out there. I offer these suggestions:

• Make sure you are taking a look at the map frequently. Are you still headed where you thought you were? Is it still the place you want to go?
• Use the tools and technology to go where you want; do not allow the tools to drive where you are headed.
• Chart your own path — often a few small deviations will make the trip that much better.

Dan Keough, Chairman & CEO, Holmes Murphy & Associates

IDEA #44 – Purposeful perpetuation
Holmes Murphy is currently in its fourth generation of leadership. What makes us unique is that when the leadership changes from generation to generation, so does the ownership of our company. We feel the future of our company relies on maintaining our private ownership. Being a privately held firm, we are accountable only to the long-term needs of our clients, and not the quarterly reports of Wall Street. We take purposeful steps to feed the entrepreneurial spirit within our organization through ownership opportunities.

Fred Buie, President, Keystone 

IDEA #58 – Electrical Manufacturing
Quarterly business review meetings with all employees

• Share performance results; review projects completed as opposed to the scheduled workload. 
• Customer compliments and complaints, exceptional project performance, extra effort observed by others.

Rowena Crosbie, President, Tero International

IDEA #68 – Celebrate constraints
Do you ever experience a shortage of time? Face deep expense cuts? Suffer from a lack of capital? Instead of lamenting the challenge, turn these limitations into competitive advantage. Present the constraint to the team as an opportunity for transformation instead of an obstruction. Meaningful progress and revolutionary change rarely happen when things are progressing as planned. It is often the result of having to work with pressing constraints. If framed properly by leaders, barriers can tap the deep creativity that leads to disruptive innovation.

Mary Sellers, President, United Way of Central Iowa

IDEA #75 – Clarity and communication are essential

• Create white papers to ensure that everyone is working from the same fact base when key decisions or changes are being made.
• Create transparency of the “why” when difficult decisions or changes have to be made.
• Host all-staff lunch-and-learns for walking through annual plans, budgets and year-end financials and as a way to learn about what is going on in the community.

Bob Riley, CEO, Riley Resource Group

IDEA #83 – Build real social capital
Our business involves natural materials, trucks, trains, employees coming and going, odors, and other bothersome activities that sometimes disrupt nearby residents. Recognizing that this must be difficult, we attended neighborhood meetings and discovered that the community wanted to build a park but didn’t have the funds to do it. Since we are located across from the fairgrounds, we let them use our parking lot during the State Fair for multiple years to sell parking spots. They generated over $75,000 in revenue! This was enough for them to build a “pocket park” in the neighborhood. Then we had a summer picnic and invited all the neighbors. That’s how you build real social capital.

Next week: All 90 Ideas
All 90 of the panelists’ ideas will be available in a special publication that will be inserted in the Sept. 16 issue of the Business Record. It will also be available online at businessrecord.com/90ideas.

Watch the speakers
To watch each speaker spend five minutes talking about their ideas, go to businessrecord.com/90ideas.