six themes from the world business forum
What a day! The World Business Forum featured phenomenal speakers and drew over 4,000 attendees from 60+ countries. I’m so honored to have been invited to attend as a guest blogger.
I tweeted the best bits from today as they rolled off the speakers’ tongues and will be doing the same tomorrow morning (follow me: deniseleeyohn) but here are six of my main takeaways so far:
1. Leadership is an art
Jim Collins, author of Built to Last, Good to Great, How the Mighty Fall: Level 5 leaders share a special brand of humility – they have absolute burning ambition for the cause and company (not themselves) combined with the will to do whatever it takes (as long as it doesn’t breach the core values)
Bill McDermott, Co-CEO of SAP: Leaders have followers – they set high expectations and are resolute in face of adversity — when others day it can’t be done, they say it can and they make it happen
Jack Welch, former CEO of GE, current founder of the Jack Welch Management Institute: lead change before you have to – complacency is the biggest danger we have – change is happening all around us – be on the offense
Carlos Brito, CEO of InBev: Dreaming big and dreaming small take same amount of energy, so dream big!
Charlene Li, author of Open Leadership: You do have to be centralizing and controlling in terms of how open you’re going to be
Li: Create a culture of sharing
Joseph Grenny, author of Influence: The Power to Change Anything: 2 problems of leadership:
- 1. what should we do (strategy)
- 2. how do I get everyone to do it (influence)
Grenny: Greeny’s law of leadership – there’s no strategy so brilliant that people can’t render it worthless
Grenny: Influencers succeed where the rest of us fail because they over-determine success – instead of focusing on one thing they need to do to get person to change; they marshall a critical mass of 6 sources of influences
2. Success is not what we think it is
Les Hinton, Dow Jones & Company: success requires seeing past your own operations and beyond the competition – leaders shouldn’t be bound by their own assumptions of their products or even peers or competitors
Collins: Greatness is not a function of circumstance (not entirely) – if’s first and foremost a conscious choice and discipline
Collins: It’s not about profit for X — being useful in a way that society values
Collins: Don’t worry about whether going to be successful; ask how you can be useful
3. Be wary of common pitfalls
Collins: definition of hubris — outrageous arrogance that inflicts suffering on innocent
Collins: It’s hubris to come in with less passion on day 1000 than on day 1
Collins: Never confuse power with leadership – I can get you to do anything if I put a gun to your head but it doesn’t mean I have led
Welch: Don’t celebrate successes; celebrate who’s doing their job
4. Having the right team is critical
Collins: If you allow growth in complexity to exceed your ability to have all key seats filled with the right people to execute brilliantly in that growth, you will fall
McDermott: You can tell the best CEOs from their executive secretaries – if you can’t manage your own house, how can you expect to run a company
McDermott: the best leaders hire over their heads every time
Welch: The main job of a CEO is developing talent – the team that fields the best players wins
Brito: Great people:
- make great companies
- attract more of the same
- will push you to be better
- like meritocracy (and they see through it if you’re not fair)
Brito: You have to be the coach – people are not the responsibility of the HR dept
Brito: We want owners vs. professionals or executives – owners make better decisions
David Gergen, former Presidential advisor: Human resources are most valuable thing you have in company
5. Leadership requires honesty and perseverance
Collins: Just because our intentions are noble and good doesn’t mean our decisions are good and wise
Collins: the Stockdale principle (named after Admiral Stockdale top ranking officer at Hanoi Hilton): never confuse the need for unwavering faith that you will prevail in the end on one hand with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts
Collins: Building greatest never happens in a single moment; it happens only by turning the flywheel in consistent intelligent direction and keeping pushing
Collins: Don’t focus on career, focus on building pockets of greatness at every step
Welch: Face reality as it is not as you want it to be
Welch: Searching for a better way every day is a game-changing way to do business
6. Why we do is more important than what we do
Collins: if your enterprise went away, who would care? – what un-fillable hole would it leave? You have to have an answer to that question otherwise someday you WILL go away
McDermott: you need a compelling vision for your business – why do you exist and why should people care? SAP’s purpose is to make the world run better
Brtio: We don’t have vision or mission, just a dream: Be the best beer company in the world
notes and quotes from other conferences I’ve recently attended: