Upcoming: Our Bucket List Trip to the USA
In the first few months as Corporate Rebels, we've visited a wide range of Bucket List heroes in Europe. From local pioneers in the Netherlands to pioneers in Belgium, France, Spain, UK, and Denmark. Now, it's time to cross the big pond for our first visit to the USA and Canada.
A lot of our bucket list heroes are based in the USA, so it's time to learn everything from the inspirational and selected American workplaces. The upcoming weeks we will be visiting the northeastern part of the USA, we'll meet eight of our sources of inspiration and we'll share with you what we learn from them. But first, let's start with exploring the list of inspirational people we'll be meeting.
New York City
We will kick off our USA trip with an incredibly exciting person from our bucket list in New York City: Simon Sinek. Simon's influential TED talk 'How great leaders inspire action' is one of the favorites of the public, and has been viewed more than 25 million times. In his talk Simon describes his theory about the *Golden Circle* and the fact that organizations should always *start with why*. The talk made him an instant guru and nowadays Simon is one of America's most sough-after public speakers.
We will stay a bit longer in Manhattan because after Simon we will meet another bucket list hero; Next Jump's co-CEOs Charlie Kim and Meghan Messenger. We are very curious about Charlie and his philosophies about the way we work. Next Jump is famous for its culture focused on employee engagement. Next Jump proves that the combination of caring for your employees and helping them grow as human beings is possible while making money and helping the world become a better place. We want to witness that with our own eyes!
We will conclude our visit in NYC with bucket list hero Mike Arauz. Mike is one of the founding members of consulting firm August and co-author of responsive.org, a leading community in the future of work and the self-organization movement. It's Mike's mission to help teams self-organize, learn, and innovate fast enough to make their dent in the universe. This mission inspires us, just as his work with August.
Pittsburgh
We will move on from NYC to Pittsburgh to visit bucket list hero Bobby Fry. Bobby is a former Wall Street trader and one of the founders of restaurant Bar Marco. He radically transformed his restaurant after traveling to 18 cities over the past two years to meet and learn from all kind of successful restaurants. Bobby learned that the most successful restaurants were giving more opportunities to their staff as they grew. We are curious to see these new ways of working in the hospitality industry. It's an industry we don't encounter often.
Toronto
After Pittsburgh we will make a small trip across the border to Canada. We have teamed up with Unleash Network to provide a workshop in Toronto on June 23 2016 at the Evergreen Brickworks. We will share our story and how we arrived at creating the Corporate Rebels movement. We will share our European perspectives and insights on employee happiness and the successes and challenges of the organizations we have visited so far. There is plenty of room for Q&A and social and active interactions. Please join us if you are around!
Iowa City
We will make a big detour to meet up with another exciting bucket list hero. We will visit Traci Fenton in her hometown Iowa City. Traci is the founder and CEO of WorldBlu, which champions the growth of democratic organizations worldwide. WorldBlu has a vision to see one billion people working in freedom-centered organizations worldwide. Every year they celebrate the most freedom-centered organizations during their landmark 'Power Question Summit'. We missed it earlier this year in Miami, but love to make it next year!
Ann Arbor
Our last destination for this USA trip will be Ann Arbor. Here we first meet up with bucket list hero Chris White for new academic insights. Chris leads the Center for Positive Organizations at the University of Michigan. The center helps leaders build high-performing organizations that bring out the best in people through ground-breaking research and educational programs. Chris is also the author of 'Changing your company from the inside out', we are looking forward to learn more about both approaches.
The next bucket list hero we visit in Ann Arbor will be Ari Weinzweig. Ari is the co-founder of Zingerman's Delicatessen, a local community of businesses that has expanded to nine Ann Arbor based businesses with over 500 employees. Zingerman's management style is often referred to be remarkable and may be unusual. It's based on the simple tenets of treating employees well and selling quality products. We can't wait to try some of these delicatessen ourselves and hope to meet other co-founder Paul Saginaw as well.
We will conclude this USA trip with a meeting with one of our most inspiring bucket list heroes: Richard Sheridan. Richard is CEO and Chief Storyteller of Joy Inc. Menlo has a radically different approach to it's workplace culture. A culture intentionally designed to produce joy. With joy as the explicit goal they have changed everything about how a company is run. We will visit Richard at Menlo and are excited to discover the inspirational blueprint in action.
Is there anything you'd like to ask these pioneers?
We can imagine there's loads of questions you want to ask the pioneers we'll be visiting. Don't miss out this opportunity and drop your question(s) in the comment box below or send them to info@corporate-rebels.com. We'd love to pass them through!
We'll be in the USA from June 15 to July 5. During our USA trip we'll of course update you on everything through our social media channels.
