When I announced I was offering a leadership development group in Houston, a lot of the feedback I got was “sounds awesome, let me know if you offer this in my city”. Point taken. I’m exploring interest in a professional development group in Central Illinois, where the largest group of my readers are from. What’s a Growth Group Like?

The details are still in development. Here are the highlights:

• An intimate group of 10 participants who want to connect, be challenged, and grow.
• Teaching and group interactions led by me.
• Meeting in Champaign, 8am-5pm, one day per month, for a year. Out-of-towners welcome to travel in.
• Teaching, group interaction, real-time workshopping, and monthly action plans to enhance your relationships and your performance. We’ll have breakfast and lunch together too.
• Teaching topics on emotional intelligence, leading others effectively, addressing conflict, pursuing your passion and purpose, creating healthy culture, strategic planning, and more.
• Designed to be affordable, and reimbursable by your employer as a professional development experience. Pricing to be determined based on interest and feedback. Scholarships available for small nonprofits or motivated individuals to whom cost could be a barrier.
• Likely start date August, 2015.

If you are interested in being part of this group, would you send me an email and let me know? Early responders will have a chance to give input to help shape how we do this. You’ll also have first dibs on registering before it’s opened up to everyone else. Thanks!

I’m in California this week for a one week intensive workshop for my growth as a person, a leader, and a coach. It’s interactive, relational, and authentically human.

I had some doubts about doing this workshop again, whether it’s indulgent, or subject to a diminishing return. This week has reminded me how valuable it is to get out of my routine context, and intentionally invest in my own growth.

When you invest in your growth, you raise the “ceiling” on what’s possible in your work and in your relationships. Don’t let your limitations be a lifelong cap on your potential. Put growth on your calendar.

I am excited to announce that my book on Investing Time & Money will be published by Career Press. It’s scheduled for a Spring 2016 release. Brilliance Audio, Amazon’s audiobook publisher, is acquiring the audio rights, and will release the audio version of the book, probably around the same time.

So ends another round of hand-wringing that turned out to be unnecessary. Thanks to all of you who encouraged me to make this thing a thing.

I’ll be writing a lot in the next six months. I probably won’t have another announcement about the book for a while. When the release date gets closer I’ll announce some ways to get a free personalized copy and stuff like that. If you follow this blog on social media, you can make sure you don’t miss announcements about the book. Just subscribe to email updates. If you want the announcements but not weekly blog posts, choose “News & Events” when you subscribe. Thanks!

A buy and hold approach has a number of advantages over actively buying and selling investments.

More Choices: Buyers have more choices about what to buy than sellers have about who to sell to. Sellers are often under more pressure to do a deal than buyers are.

Negotiating Power: Due to the above difference in choices, buyers often have more power in privately negotiated transactions than sellers do. Buyers can usually hold out for a good deal. Sellers may not have that luxury.

Lower Transaction Costs: Every transaction (buy or sell) involves transaction costs. Trading commissions and bid/ask spreads apply to exchange traded investments like stocks. Legal fees and due diligence apply to private transactions. Buy and hold means far fewer transactions. It adds up.

Favorable tax treatment: Gains on assets held at least a year are subject to long-term capital gains taxes, instead of ordinary income tax rates on short-term capital gains. For investors in high tax brackets, this is a huge difference. Compounding that difference over 40 years means an investor in the top tax bracket who pays long-term capital gains tax on his gains every year will have about twice the total at the end than an investor who pays ordinary income tax on his gains every year.

Deferred Gains: This is perhaps the biggest benefit. Capital gains taxes are not incurred until the gain is “realized” by selling the asset. If this is 50 years after you bought it, that’s a long time to continue earning on what otherwise would have been siphoned off to the IRS. In other words, buying and holding can create a Roth IRA effect for your whole portfolio, not just the few thousand a year you may be allowed to contribute to a Roth IRA. And if philanthropy is your goal down the line, capital gains taxes can be avoided entirely by donating appreciated stock.

Fewer Decisions to Make: If an investor buys and holds for ten years, she has to make one good decisions over that ten years – buy the right thing. If she buys and sells once per year, she has to make twenty decisions over that time period that are as good, on average, as the one. That’s much harder. And that’s many more opportunities to make a big mistake.

Higher Buying Standards: Knowing you plan to keep what you buy for a long, long time is good incentive to be thoroughly selective up front. Telling yourself you can sell it if it doesn’t work out can be an excuse to rationalize a deal that shouldn’t be done. And if you are buying and holding, the number of winners you need to find each year is much lower, so you can afford to be picky.

A Bias Toward Saving: The purpose of investing is to increase the number of pennies in the piggy back. Buying and holding means your savings has to stay invested and can’t be spent.

Credible Reputation: People trust the decisions of an investor who sticks with them for a long time more than those of someone who changes the plan frequently. Many business owners prefer to sell their business to someone who will keep it stable and intact, not flip it. These translate to big advantages when it comes to raising capital or getting a first look at an acquisition.

The biggest disadvantage to buy and hold investing? It’s boring. The returns may be higher, but the adrenaline level is much lower.

Business is an active competition. Other businesses are working hard to beat you ever day. Businesses must perform, or cease to exist. Nonprofit organizations aren’t exempt. They must compete for donor money to survive.

For an organization to perform, it’s team members must perform. Good morale, flexibility from leadership, positive communication – these are important. So are standards, measurement, and consequences.

Do your team members know what levels of performance will meet your standards?

Are you measuring individual performance so it can be compared objectively and consistently to those standards? Can everyone see it on a spreadsheet, or better yet, a visual graph?

Does something happen when a team member or a whole team doesn’t meet the standard? Is there a consequence? What about when they exceed the standard?

Performance management needs defined metrics, accurate measurement, and specific standards. And if the standards are real, not just wishes, the experiences of the team members must be different when they fall short, meet, or exceed the standards. These are part of what it takes to be a team that wins and lasts.