The Brain Trust

Comments on CEO Peer Groups in the National Media

CEO Peer Groups and CEO Conferences are now becoming a popular resource for CEOs and business leaders themselves to thrash out problems, discuss ideas, do a reality check and upgrade their own managerial skills.

Read below some excerpts from a select collection of business stories on the efficacy of CEO Peer Groups.

The Denver Post

".... The advice was the kind of advice that regularly comes from meeting with the same group of presidents month after month who help each other make decisions needed to lead their companies to where they want them to be...members are not wasting time reinventing the wheel. They avoid mistakes that were made by others in their group and solve many of their company's problems by hearing how their group members and facilitators solved the same problems."

Inc. Magazine

Steve Ashton, CEO of Ashton Photo Company, a Salem, Oregon photo image printer, has been a member for years. "More than anything else, the meetings are a reality check. Other members give you a variety of perspectives. It's brutally candid."

Business Magazine

"Through their regular meetings, members are given a chance to discern the trees from the forest, to ponder strategic, "big picture" issues. Too often while running companies, CEO's become so caught up in short term and long term projects that they can't always recognize, and deal with, surfacing problems. Sitting through the sessions each month gives members time not just to recognize problems, but also to debate solutions..."

The Wall Street Journal

"Meetings like these are taking place across the U.S. these days as growing numbers of CEO's turn to their fellow business owners and managers for expertise. With $2,000 a-day consultants beyond their means, the CEO's essentially hire one another for a song."

Nashville Business Journal

"As a CEO, you don't have peers you can let your hair down with", says Curt Hahn, CEO of Film House, Inc..." (with a CEO peer group) you can discuss a highly volatile, highly sensitive issue in total candor. You don't get that from your own board of directors or your own management team. Nobody has an interest in protecting themselves. They're only there to offer their best advice and counseling to friends."

USA Today

"These are the only people I can talk to who have no ulterior motive except for me to be successful", says John Schock, President of FMS.