Management Clinic Keynote Speakers
The American Nursery & Landscape Association’s (ANLA) 34th annual Management Clinic takes place Feb. 1-4, 2006, in Louisville, Ky. The Management Clinic represents a green industry training event focused exclusively on business skills for owners and managers of garden centers, landscape firms, landscape distributors and growers. Anna Ball, president of Ball Horticultural Company and first time attendee in 2005, spoke to the gathered attendees, saying, “this event has more energy and imagination than any other in the industry.”
This year’s keynote speakers include Stan Slap, CW Metcalf and Steve Uzzell. Stan Slap, president of Slap, an international consulting company, has a 20-year history as the CEO of companies with as many as 5,000 employees reporting to him. Slap now serves as a director of several companies. He develops growth strategies for leading organizations and personally coaches presidents and senior teams in many companies. Slap’s concepts of “strategic insurance” and his methods for creating brandable customer service and emotional commitment in managers have revolutionized the performance of many companies, according to ANLA. His talk will focus on the critical importance of strategic implementation..
CW Metcalf has appeared on the “Today Show” , CNN, “The Home Show” and has been featured in the pages of the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Reader’s Digest and Industry Week. In 1992, he completed his first book, Lighten Up -Survival Skills for People Under Pressure. Metcalf says that the book not only includes information on the value of humor in the workplace, but also offers valuable survival skills for families, children, the terminally-ill, alcoholics and others confronting crisis. His session will explore a new vision of humor and its value as a stress management tool.
Steve Uzzell is one of the top photographers in the country, according to ANLA. He started in the business 31 years ago as the assistant to the editor of National Geographic and a member of its photographic staff. This award-winning photographer travels the world for his clients and provides an insightful perspective from his side of the lens, according to ANLA. Using photographs as illustrations of his metaphor about possibility and creativity, Steve will show attendees how to make any venture an adventure. His presentation is entitled “Open Roads Open Minds: An Exploration of Creative Problem Solving.”
The Management Clinic will also feature a bonus team-building session on Thursday night with Matt Weinstein. Weinstein says, “You can’t expect your employees to provide ‘service with a smile’ if you don’t first give them something to smile about!” For 30 years the Playfair organization has been a laboratory for the development of “fun-centered” management skills that can have a profound effect on increasing employee retention and company loyalty. In this interactive session attendees will take a look at ways to restructure the business culture so that it supports the “human” values in the workplace – such as playfulness, creativity and community – and at the same time increases productivity, teamwork and morale.
For more information, please contact Stephanie Still, ANLA meetings manager, at (202) 789-2900 or visit http://www.anla.org.
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