It was a joy to spend last week immersed in Saïd Business School, University of Oxford's Strategic Leadership Programme with this fine cohort of leaders. Just a few of my many highlights include:
- Chris Kutarna got us thinking about a Technologist's future of abundance where a robot becomes cheaper than educating and training a human being, and urged us to focus on sense making within a changing world
- Margaret Heffernan drew our attention to the distinction between Complicated systems (getting through an airport to your plane) versus Complex systems (the impact of weather on flying a plane) and the different ways these systems need to be managed
- Clara Gaggero Westaway showed us how deeply focusing on problems can create delightful solutions to our customers' problems, including a marvellous example of how they developed an 'old age friendly' Samsung phone manual
- Peter Hanke blew our hearts & minds as we spotted our leadership patterns via conducting a choir at Balliol College
- Prof. Paul Smith showed us the very objects at Oxford's Natural History Museum that had led to Darwin's world-changing paradigm shift in the Origin of Species.
- Prof. Colin Mayer CBE reframed corporate purpose as "Profitable solutions to the problems of people and planet"
- Jon Stokes gave us the psychologist's view on leadership, offering us the resonant equation: Leadership = Direction + Energy
- Richard Olivier used Shakespeare's Julius Caesar to teach us the dynamics of power and politics (and just a touch of back-stabbing!), through his exceptional archetypes model.
I also learned a huge amount from my outstanding tutor Sue Dopson, plus the other tutors (who I'll mention below) and our most excellent, global cohort of brilliant and insightful leaders:
Juan M. Fernandez, Majed Binbattal, Stephen Wackerle, Frank Tracey, Dan Gruia, @Jayaselan K. Navaratnam, Hazem Albalushi حازم البلوشي
, Beau Murfitt, Johan Van Neck, Michelle Nolan, Geraldine Mills, Savan Tuysuz, Maarten Haverkamp, Damien Ryan, Maziar Alamouti, Jaber Alsiyadi , @Jamiu Saka, Nazaiful Affendi Zainal Abidin, Mei Ramsay, Hanadi Alsheikh, Mubashar Nazar, CFA, @Azizul Zainol, Anna Starrett, GAICD, Melia Stone, Mercy Maduabuchi (Engr.), Anoud AlGhaith, Hebah Alshamlan, @Fazni Ismail, @Razzaq Abiodun, Pietro Novelli, @Deshnie Naidoo, Laura Maida, Anton Barnett-Harris GAICD, Paulette Leo-Olagbaiye, MBA and Sothearoath Oeur.
Such a pleasure and may our learnings bring a huge amount of positive impact to those around us! Massive thanks to Lucy Shaw who pulled together the whole experience and held us so well throughout.
