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What you get out of the Global Leadership Summit depends on where you are at in life when you attend. \u00a0\u00a0This year I attend from the perspective of a manager to over 50 staff, tasked with leading profitability so as to reward a high-capacity team in a softening market. I also attend as a board member of a non-profit, developing strategy for a program with over 15 years of history emerging out of a parent organisation into its own entity. Finally, I come as someone who is reconciling a desire to make a lasting difference in the short time remaining on this earth with the day-to-day routine of satisfying a profit motive.<\/p>\n
It is to this last point that this year\u2019s tag-line resonates: Lead where you are<\/em>. The GLS will not tell me how to develop a capacity planning model or plan a launch event. What it will do is help determine the kind of person I am as I do those things.<\/p>\n The format of DVD sessions on the big screen means the experience could perhaps be replicated by queuing up a series of Ted talks<\/a>\u00a0in my living room over a couple of days.\u00a0 The value in attending the GLS is in taking you out of the day-to-day to reflect on your leadership approach in a structured context of making a difference. This context is then applied to the situation of each attendee, translating speakers from faith-based, business, community, and political circles into the sphere of influence of each delegate.<\/p>\n I was asked this year what I got out of attending the summits.\u00a0 Given that this is my sixth year, it is a valid question. I can see aspects of past summits written into the DNA of my leadership style.<\/p>\n My belief in each individual realising their strengths was supported by Marcus Buckingham’s talk in 2007. My desire to listen to \u201cthe fringe\u201d within the organisation and understand and guide the narrative aligns with 2009\u2019s presentations<\/a>\u00a0by Gary Hamel and Dave Gibbons.<\/p>\n The 2010 summit<\/a> reinforced many leadership tools I use on a regular basis.\u00a0 These include:<\/p>\n My reflection on the 2011 summit<\/a>\u00a0is a reflection on a year of growth.\u00a0 My main take-aways at the time were vulnerability and humility, two traits that seem out of place against the backdrop of commercial pressures. Over the past twelve months, my perspectives on firms of endearment<\/a>, purpose<\/a>, meaning<\/a>, and progress<\/a>\u00a0need to be considered against commercial realities. The resulting tension results in a need for\u00a0accountability<\/a>\u00a0and gratitude<\/a>\u00a0to moderate the approach to achieve an end goal of helping people realise their potential within the organisational context.<\/p>\n I enter into the 2012 summit with a framework of balance.\u00a0 Profit margins are the ticket to the table to have the people conversation.\u00a0 I now look to this year’s summit speakers to see how their perspectives can help frame the opportunity moving forward.<\/p>\n Inspiration came from for U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice<\/a>\u00a0who shared that the most important quality of a leader is optimism. Others will not follow if they do not see the possibility of a brighter future.\u00a0 Leaders do not accept the world as it is, but as it should be.\u00a0 Times that currently seem impossible when viewed in retrospect will be inevitable.\u00a0 Today\u2019s headlines and history\u2019s judgement are rarely the same.<\/p>\n Education reform activist Geoffrey Canada<\/a>\u00a0of the Harlem Children\u2019s Zone<\/a>\u00a0spoke on the reality of failure early in\u00a0entrepreneurial\u00a0endeavors\u00a0and remembering who you are working for. You work for your client, not your staff. \u00a0As a case in point, Geoffrey said he made a mistake of allowing the wrong staff to stay on for a year when the kids he supports not did not have that year to give.<\/p>\n Geoffrey also raised an interesting notion of the \u201ctipping point\u201d in his\u00a0neighborhoods. For all points of contact, at what point will kids have a 60 per cent to 70 per cent chance of receiving a positive message as compared to a negative message?\u00a0 This is an interesting concept to apply to both values and strategy in organisations. I ask, what is the likelihood that my staff will encounter the positive values we are trying to cultivate, and what is the likelihood of encountering a strategic change initiative we are implementing on the floor?<\/p>\n Finally, Pranitha Timothy<\/a>, Director of Aftercare at International Justice Mission<\/a>, inspired through her story of surviving a brain\u00a0tumor\u00a0to go on to restore more than 4,000 people from slavery.\u00a0 Stories from leaders such as Pranitha\u2019s and ex-Hewlett Packard CEO Carly Fiorina<\/a>\u00a0who shared about her battle with cancer and the loss of her step-daughter help apply Condoleezza Rice\u2019s recommendation to maintain perspective. It is important to remember that there are other situations much more difficult than yours and that leading is an honour rather than a chore.<\/p>\n Another area that was a highlight was a consistent message around strategy, a topic that is top of mind<\/a>\u00a0for me lately.\u00a0 Bill Hybels<\/a> spoke about results being a numbers game to some extent, where you have to sow seeds in order to produce fruit. \u00a0If you want more results, sow more seed.<\/p>\n He followed with his strategy around applying six strategies over six weeks. The strategies are on top of the day to day efforts and have proven to mobilise his teams around a cadence of achievable \u201csix by sixes\u201d opportunities.\u00a0 How to balance the two messages of “sowing more seeds” with reducing the number of strategic initiatives may take me the next twelve months to reconcile.<\/p>\n Jim Collins<\/a>\u00a0reiterated this paradox with lessons from his latest book Great by Choice<\/a><\/em>. Collins described attributes of companies who achieved ten times market value of their competitors.\u00a0 Three main behaviours include:<\/p>\n Finally, Patrick Lencioni<\/a>\u00a0spoke from his new book The Advantage<\/a><\/em>\u00a0about creating healthy organisations through four disciplines of building a cohesive leadership team, creating clarity, over-communicating clarity, and reinforcing clarity.\u00a0 Lencioni focused on six critical questions to create clarity:<\/p>\n Lencioni stressed that getting to what we actually do comes down to a core three things that are non-negotiable. This is understood by all staff such that if a customer asks for something that violates these principles, you can respond with a simple message of “We’ll miss you.”<\/p>\n As a personal application of this principle, I am reminded of situations in the last twelve months. In one situation, a client did not want to continue to invest in their six year old system that was no longer supported by underlying technologies. \u00a0In another situation, a client did not see the value in investing in quality control for each release. \u00a0I have found that these situations expose values of my studio even when though those values may not be explicitly stated. \u00a0The\u00a0opportunity\u00a0then is to clearly\u00a0communicate\u00a0those values, such as “We revolutionise through digital” and “We deliver solutions that work” to manage expectations in the event those values are asked to be violated.<\/p>\n A final point that hit me this year was the concept of the three 15s, where Hybels presented our careers in three bands of fifteen years.\u00a0 In the first band, we are invincible, operating on pure adrenaline.\u00a0 In our second fifteen, we begin to realise we may have a finite number of opportunities remaining as some of our mistakes may come to rest. Our final fifteen is a period when the end is in sight and our desire is to finish as strongly as possible.<\/p>\n I can relate to this metaphor as I enter the middle of my middle fifteen.\u00a0 The invincibility of youth is gone. \u00a0Having just completed my Masters of Applied Social Science (Management), I feel I have more to learn than ever.\u00a0 In talking to a colleague about this, he observed that expectations on you during your first fifteen tend to be low, whereas in your middle fifteen you are expected to have the answers.<\/p>\n Therein perhaps is the answer as to why I attend the Global Leadership Summit each year. I expect of myself that I should have the answers by now. \u00a0I am coming to grips with just how much we are all making it up as we go in this complex and changing world. I can never learn enough to have all the answers, but I can perhaps become more of the kind of person who can arrive at the right answer at the right time.<\/p>\n Yet that is what makes it so rich and exciting.\u00a0 It is a fantastic world full of potential. \u00a0At the core of this potential I still believe is the ability for each individual to fully understand what they can achieve in the brief time they have.<\/p>\n To this end, I will leave you with a quote from Jim Collins as he reflected on his observations on finding meaning behind what we do on a day-to-day basis:<\/p>\n \u201cIt is impossible to have a great life unless it is a meaningful life.\u00a0 It is difficult to have a meaningful life without meaningful work.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Reflecting on six years of GLS<\/h2>\n
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Inspiration<\/h2>\n
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<\/p>\nStrategy: six by sixes, 20-mile marches, and six clarity questions<\/h2>\n
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\nSpeaks to a discipline to not go too far so as to stretch yourself thin to where you are then unprepared when unexpected things hit you.\u00a0 Establish a standard of performance and hold to the philosophy even in the toughest conditions. Success is based not on an average but on consistent performance.\u00a0 The signature of mediocrity is not in an unwillingness to change but in chronic inconsistency.<\/li>\n
\nCreativity needs to be supported by empirical evidence. \u00a0An analogy used was that of firing bullets to find the angle to the target so you make the most use of your gunpowder when firing the cannonball.\u00a0 Bet on something you know is going to work. Blend creativity and discipline. Creativity is natural, discipline is not. Discipline amplifies creativity rather than destroy it.<\/li>\n
\nThe only mistakes you can learn from are the ones you survive. You have to be optimistic, but there is awareness that the world is a scary place.\u00a0 Successful companies maintain a ratio of 3 to 10 times cash to assets, a practice started when they were small.\u00a0 The dedication of a financial buffer is not a luxury of size. It is what you do before you are in trouble, how you manage with discipline in good times so you can be strong when people need you the most.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n
The path from here and reconciling the three 15s<\/h2>\n
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