Off-Centered Leadership: The Dogfish Head Guide to Motivation, Collaboration and Smart Growth - Hardcover

by Sam Calagione (Author)

Find out what happens when companies stop competing and start collaborating.

Off-Centered Leadership considers an innovative approach to business by exploring what happens when companies stop competing and start collaborating -- both externally in the marketplace and internally in building a culture of communication, trust and alignment. Brimming with lessons on entrepreneurship and culture from the founder of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, one of the fastest growing independent brewery in the country, members of his leadership team and external mentors from the worlds of business and art, this game-changing text turns competition on its head by showcasing how competing organizations can work together--and with other local businesses--to reach a common goal. The text dives into how Dogfish Head has blazed a new trail through the development of a revolutionary business model that has called upon musicians, community organizations, and even other breweries to keep product development fresh and create engaging customer experiences.

This book documents and addresses the growing pains a company experiences as it evolves from the awkward early start up years into a mid-sized sustainable company with hundreds of co-workers. Calagione is candid in sharing his personal leadership challenges and success and calls on other seasoned vets inside and outside the company who inform and influence the journey of growth and creative expression Dogfish Head is on. This book is rich with practical information entrepreneurs and business people can apply to their own professional journeys.

Competition has long been the name of the game in the business world, but what if there was a different way to approach business? The collaboration over competition approach to business has been proven to foster positivity, productivity, and, ultimately, success. By partnering with your competition instead of trying to outsell them, you could actually create a memorable customer experience that will have people coming back for more

Internally as well the dogfish approach has evolved and is not traditional org chart driven top down leadership. Calagione shared the challenges of evolving from a founder-driven entrepreneurial company where he was the sole creative and strategic director into a more collaborative collective where he is now one of many creative and strategic voices in the company.

• Discover the methods and approaches dogfish head has used to grow a rich diverse leadership team and evolve from a company basing decisions on the gut and whims of a founder to one with a more robust wholistic strategic approach in a way that allows them to stay creative and maintain their irreverent off-centered culture.
• Discover how ditching your competitive nature and embracing collaboration can allow you to better serve your customers
• Explore innovative solutions to the challenges that today's businesses face
• Consider how your company can grow through the collaboration over competition business model
• Leverage the experiences of other companies to truly understand how collaboration can contribute to your businesss success

Off-Centered Leadership is a groundbreaking book that explores the power of collaboration within the business world.

Front Jacket

Stop competing and start collaborating!

"This is a must read, not just for beer lovers, but for anyone who values a distinctly and wonderfully off-centered approach to life and work.
Sam Calagione is an innovative brewer, a visionary leader, a fun collaborator, and a great friend. Sam's new book, Off-centered Leadership, brilliantly offers keen insights on how to build a business with soul, and how to lead and motivate people in a fast-paced environment. Sam and I have followed similar paths in building our beer companies, and we have faced many of the same challenges. His steadfast commitment to quality and innovation, and his quirky, off-centered management style, make his new book both entertaining and enlightening."
--JIM KOCH, co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company

"If you've started your business out of passion and skill, but know in your heart that you can't do it alone, read here how Sam Calagione of Dogfish Head faced down that important challenge and transformed himself into a leader of a team that leads the company's growth and excellence while preserving his original passions."
--BOB TAYLOR, cofounder and President of Taylor Guitars

"This epic, essential and pioneering guide to thoughtfully growing your business and life takes us on an incredible journey of discovery. It is brimming with trailblazing innovation, collaboration, entrepreneurship, creativity, passion, risk, disruption and the inevitable transition to a better future...And it's all built around beer...What could be better?"
--BILL WALTON, a proud and loyal Dogfish fan, student, and consumer

Off-centered Leadership offers any leader of a newly formed company or an established organization a new vision of leadership. Sam Calagione--the founder and owner of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery--shows how to embrace the spirit of collaboration over competition and harness its power as a business strategy. This hands-on resource reveals how one of the nation's fastest growing independent breweries spear-headed a collaborative model that better serves its customer and its coworkers, provides innovative solutions to common business challenges, and continues to rocket Dogfish Head to the top of the independent brewing industry.

Filled with illustrative examples and written in Calagione's fresh and engaging style, Off-centered Leadership offers a key to ongoing organizational success.

Back Jacket

Off-centered Leadership reveals an innovative approach to leadership and shows what can happen when companies stop competing and start collaborating both in the marketplace and within their organizations. Drawing on unconventional entrepreneurship and leadership lessons, this remarkable resource is filled with game-changing advice and illustrative examples from someone who has been there. By developing an organization built on communication, trust, and alignment, Sam Calagione--a brash, punk-rock loving, English major--transformed his pint-sized, tiny 12-gallon brewpub into Dogfish Head Craft Brewery, one of the nation's fastest growing independent breweries.

Written in his highly entertaining style, Calagione shows how direct competitors and small, indie businesses can work together to reach a common goal. Calagione rejected the traditional marketing approach and developed an inventive business model that called on musicians, community organizations, and even other breweries to keep Dogfish Head's product development fresh and create engaging customer experiences.

Off-centered Leadership delves into the struggles Sam Calagione and his team dealt with when his company matured from an awkward, early start-up to a sustainable company with hundreds of coworkers. As is typical of most entrepreneurs, in the beginning Calagione oversaw almost every detail of his business. As his company expanded he was able to give up his micromanagement approach and call on others to inspire his company's growth. In candid terms, Calagione explains how he handled the changing leadership--from being the sole creative, strategic director to being one of many people to influence the nature of the company.

Today, Dogfish Head is a thriving company with a diverse leadership team and a robust, holistic approach--all while maintaining the company's innovation and signature off-centered culture. Drawing on the book's myriad examples and hard-won lessons, any business can learn the fundamentals of inter-company collaboration. It begins with making sure everyone is speaking the same language and working from the same foundation. At many companies, that foundation eventually gets translated into statements and documents that are the playbook for the company. Off-centered Leadership is about sharing, updating, prioritizing, and realizing the philosophies embodied in a company's DNA.

Tap into Dogfish Head's "collaboration over competition" approach to foster positivity, productivity, and ongoing success. Sam Calagione's new book, Off-centered Leadership gives any leader the practical information that will go a long way to increase innovation, company growth, and customer engagement.

Author Biography

Sam Calagione is the founder and president of Dogfish Head Craft Brewery in Milton, Delaware, one of the nation's fastest growing independent breweries, Dogfish Head Brewings & Eats in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and the Dogfish Inn in Lewes, Delaware. He has been named Businessman of the Year by the Small Business Administration, named one of Fast Company's 100 Most Creative People in Business, and The Wall Street Journal calls Sam "a Pioneer of bizarre brews."