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Rob Lebow  

Named "Number 40" of the Top 100 Thought Leaders of the World for 2007 by Leadership Excellence Magazine

Rob Lebow was one of the leaders on MICROSOFT’s team to bring WINDOWS® to the world, and he’s at it again!

In 2005, 2006 and 2007, Leadership Excellence Magazine named Rob One of the Top 100 Thought Leaders in the World.

During the past 22 years, his international organization, LCI, has worked with more than 300 clients worldwide and was ranked one of The Top 10 Best Leadership Development Organizations in America in 2005, 2006 and 2007. ASQ, with over 60,000 corporate members and governmental agencies, is considering the approach to introduce the Shared Values Process®/Operating System as ASQ’s “Change Management” Human Resource complement to the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award®, fitting three of the seven strategic excellence criteria. 

Shared Values® may become the “new paradigm shift” for organizations seeking the highest level of Change Management—A New People Operating System™ that dramatically engages “all four generations” and supports applications such as Customer Service & Market Penetration, ISO 9000®, TQM®, Six Sigma®, Lean® and Baldrige®. Like the MICROSOFT WINDOWS® introduction in 1988, Rob’s vision is to help lead the team that changes the world and melds all four seemingly diverse generational personal value-systems into workplaces that enjoy staff members who are collaborative, positive in their expectations, responsible for their actions, decisions and behaviors and creative in responding to customer demand. Rob believes that this is not only possible, but is a must if an organization is to enjoy a highly functioning workplace both internally and externally with customers. This is accomplished by implementing the most powerful force in an organization: the “human touch!” And, the net-net is staff members who deliver uncompromising goods and services to customers, stakeholders, and shareholders to improve market forces, competitiveness and brand loyalty. 

“Price is not a competitive advantage, it’s a profit killer!” — Rob Lebow

Rob spent nearly a decade at AVON Products in the fiercely competitive cosmetic industry, where he led one of the most successful divisions.  While a Division Manager responsible for over 7,000 AVON Sales Associates, Rob was asked to join the elite Mergers & Acquisitions team that acquired companies like Tiffany’s. Rob’s career then shifted to the software industry where his team won the computer industry’s prestigious DOS Product of the Year Award,moving a 4% market share to over 21% market share in the first year he was leading the marketing team at the database company Microrim!

Both Michael Dell and Bill Gates tried to recruit Rob to lead their marketing communications and corporate communications groups in their companies. Rob decided to stay in Seattle and joined MICROSOFT as the Director of Marketing & Corporate Communications with responsibilities for packaging, public relations, advertising, brochure development and the integration of U.S. and international marketing relations and distribution channels. In 1990, Harvard Business School wrote a case study highlighting Rob’s ethical leadership after he was singled out in the Wall Street Journal for “refusing to accept confidential information stolen from Lotus Development.” Rob was involved in the launch of over 47 software and hardware products while at MICROSOFT.

Rob is a professional speaker who has been compared to Tom Peters and Tony Robbins for his passion and presence. He has appeared on over 50 TV and radio shows, including CNN and CNBC, promoting his books. His message is: “Great companies are made up of employees who are treated with respect and trust, and in return take personal responsibility for their performance and behavior.“

His bestseller, A Journey Into The Heroic Environment,is in its Third Edition and has become a business classic with over 450,000 books published in seven languages. Rob’s talks always center on the theme of Customer Centrix–TransAction Zone Thinking™ and Shared Values® and the impact character, respect and trust have on an organization’s success, marketing opportunities, and on the care customers inside and outside an organization receive. His content-driven talks and inspirational style are supported by LCI Research that has conclusively linked a high correlation with the leading performance indicators, including profits & margins, marketing success, accidents on the job, customer care and service excellence, waste reduction, organizational flexibility—bureaucratic behaviors, employee engagement levels, employee turnover, internal corruption—Ethics & Integrity(Sarbanes-Oxley compliance) and future financial success on how staff members are treated.The landmark international 2,500 site Study™ called the Values & Attitude Study™ tests for the “Eight Shared Values®” —a set of eight-values that LCI registered and trademarked in the late 1980’s like MICROSOFT® did with WINDOWS®. It is these Eight Shared Values® that are the future key to all long-term organizational success! That is what the LCI research confirms. 

Rob holds both Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees and attended Miami University in Oxford, Ohio for his undergraduate work, and the University of Virginia and The Graduate Center of City University – New York for his Master’s studies. Rob has been married to his wife, Sharon, for 40 years, and has a daughter, Lauren, who works in the NASCAR world as a NASCAR technician in North Carolina. His family presently lives in the Seattle Metro area where LCI Corporate Headquarters operates.

Rob’s sixth book, “When You Grab A Cat By The Tail!” hit Barnes & Noble and other national chain bookstores during the 2007 Holiday Season.

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