Markon's Leadership Development Program (LDP) Participants Lead Strategy

The February LDP session marked the beginning of the end, and featured firsts and lasts. The theme was “mini-CEO” as Leigh and Steve started the class with an exercise on leading strategy (the last in the leadership arc), focused on our long-term strategy for 2025.

Putting on our “Matt Dean” hats, we considered the framework of revenue, profit, labor rates, benefits, and branding and the relationships between them.

We assessed where we thought Markon is today and where we believe Markon will be in 2025. We then discussed the results. How does Markon's future look according to this class? Pretty bright!

Next on the agenda was a first—a gathering in the WELL room—for the last executive presentation, done for the first time virtually. We heard (and saw) Drew Thompson, Chief Growth Officer, from his office in Columbus, Ohio, as he told us the story of his journey to Markon. The Thompson Talk Themes were four-fold:

1. public service
2. empowering others
3. going forward without the “stripes” (credentials)
4. horsepower

This hardworking leader spent 12 years in public service as a government employee and contractor and is now focused on strategic growth and employee service. What does this mean? It means more opportunities for employee professional growth, including leadership roles—a reason LDP is so important!  

Returning to our usual meeting room, we put our “mini-CEO” hats back on and had another first—a set of case studies. We divided into four groups, each with a different scenario to discuss, present, and provide a recommendation for, using the framework of revenue, profit labor rates, benefits, and branding. What did we discover? The Markon culture is strong! And we love case studies!

At the end of this last “regular” class, we discussed another first—the first time we will each be presenting to the class at our next (and final) class. Yes, the TED talks are nearly upon us! How are we feeling about them? Excited and apprehensive but sad that they mark the end of our year-long LDP adventure. And what an incredible adventure it’s been!