How do you grow your business 93 quarters in a row?

Last Friday, November 17, Archie Black, the recently retired CEO of SPS Commerce, was the speaker at the 106^th Good Leadership Breakfast. The theme for the fall series was: Good Leadership is a Team Sport. Archie was the perfect speaker because the publicly traded SPS Commerce celebrated sales growth for the 93rd quarter in a row. That’s more than 23 years of consistent growth.

The question of the day: How do they do it?

“We have a win today, win tomorrow mentality,” Archie stated at the beginning of our interview. “Everyone knows we need one another to win. And the key to winning in any business is to understand the customer really well. With that mutual understanding, you can hold one another to the highest standards…and that’s how we continue to grow.”

Success Habits – the keys to SPS Success

With every Good Leadership Breakfast speaker, we interview a few of their direct reports to identify what they think are Archie’s success habits. A success habit is something a leader has learned to repeat over and over again, because it really works. With Archie, we discussed three success habits that he was willing to claim as part of his magic formula:

1. People first: training and development matter
2. Stay focused don’t do things that don’t fit in the bullseye
3. Stay calm: when did “hard” become “bad?”

The totality of his comments surrounded the elusive subject of accountability. “We find it’s easier to create a healthy spirit of accountability in our teams when we’re investing in our people and we’re staying focused. Once you start winning consistently, and everyone realizes that winning is fun, it becomes contagious.”

Tickets are on sale for the Spring 2024 Good Leadership Breakfast Series kicking off with February’s speaker, Rod Young, CEO of Delta Dental. The theme is Celebrating the Magic of Managers. The research and programming will focus on the manager’s role in creating a culture of healthy accountability.