Category: Leadership

Marshall Goldsmith masterclass at Human Asset Summit

The 2012 Human Asset Summit is kicking off with a fantastic pre-conference masterclass with renown world author on leadership and coaching, Dr. Marshall Goldsmith.

Marshall has explained that it’s not only what you do that matters, but what you STOP doing is also important as a leader. As Peter Drucker said: ” We spend a lot of time helping leaders what to do, we don’t spend enough time helping leaders learn what to stop” .

So, Marshall suggests as a leader one must stop:

  • Winning too much – many leaders being in the position where they are constantly try to prove themselves and aim to win every conversation, not matter whether it’s important or not.
  • Adding too much value – sometime it’s time to let to. Unfortunately more often than not people with power and influence tend to contribute and comment.
  • Telling the world how special they are – High performer leaders who get in a senior position tend to constantly prove themselves, emphasizing on their special skills and abilities.
  • Passing too much judgement – People in leadership position tend to pigeonhole people and pass on too much judgement, prejudice.

While the theory is easy to understand, it is very difficult to get rid of old habits. The biggest challenge in effective communication is not to get in the other’s person shoe, rather to get out of our own.

A brilliant case exercise has demonstrated that even seasoned and experienced professionals fell in the trap of saying destructive comments and repeating the forbidden words in effective communications of “No”, “But”, “However”, “Great, however…”.

The lessons learnt today are equally applicable for business, and even more private life. Marshall’s wisdom will help to create a better life for ourselves, better teams around us and most importantly a great relationship with our loved ones at home.

What three amazing days are ahead!

Phuuu, it’s been a hectic year, however we are in the finish line for the upcoming Human Asset 2012 Summit. What an amazing three-days event is ahead, I am so excited as this is the best event so far we have produced in terms of content and quality.

I can only thank from the bottom of my heart for all speakers, supporters and most importantly our folks at Stamford Global who contributed towards making it a great event.

You guys simply ROCK!

Now what is waiting for the attendees on 13-15 November ?

We shall be again at a fantastic venue, the 5-star Boscolo Hotel -yup, three days of luxurious pampering and finally a place where during the coffee break they serve TRUE Italian cappuccino, latte, or whatever you like.  Small thing but matters :)

An amazing line up of speakers, including first time in Europe Dr. Marshall Goldsmith, #7 most influential business thinker on Thinkers 50 list and Dr.Dave Ulrich (requires no introduction) – the man who shaped the way we think about HR, the #1 most influential international HR Thinker.

Marshall will also hold an exclusive Masterclass for business leaders in Hungary on 12th November at our partner, Telekom Hungary’s Headquarter.

We shall be kicking off on 13th November with a Marshall masterclass on Leadership Development prior the official opening of the Summit.

Then at 1 pm the official opening will happen, straight away sharing 2 global corporate keynotes. Derrick Ahlfeldt, Senior VP for HR at Visa Europe will highlight how building strategy is aligned with structuring the team and eventually delivering performance.

Then a very forward looking, provocative presentation by Ebay’s senior HR director, head of Global Employee Engagement, Annemie Ress who will guide us through the HR (R)Evolution – the evolving role of HR and business management, how we must start thinking differently about people and the drivers of true performance.

Great start, time for a Cocktail Dinner, a glass of champagne and networking. By the way, we shall have fantastic line up of attendees too.  This is probably the only vendor neutral event in Europe, where participants meet people from the profession, VP, Director level of attendees – close to 200 of them – from Switzerland, Germany, Central Europe, Russia, Nordics regions.

After the Day One BIG IDEA day it’s time to roll up the sleeves and get to work. Day Two is all about PRACTITIONERS. The day will start by a mindblowing – and I mean it! – keynote by Stevens J. Sainte-Rose, Group HR Director, Eurasia Africa Group, The Coca Cola Company. Those who saw Stevens at our Talent Summit earlier this year know what I am talking about.

It’s no nonsense, high energy, high on content session.

Time to select a Track which is the most appealing. The Strategic HR Track will be chaired by Stevens, he will introduce Geoffrey Matthews – Vice President, HR Strategy – Merck Group, who will highlight A New Model for Leaders to Engage Their Organizations

After this speech we shall welcome Jonathan Ferrar, VP of HR, Analytics at IBM, all the way from the Big Apple. IBM has done some fascinating stuff on Analytics that resulted pure gold business result, so this is a presentation not to be missed.

Following Jonathan Jozsef Blasko, former WE HR Director at BAT, a true globetrotter will provoke the audience with The (R)Evolution of HR to a strategic Role

Lastly on this Track we shall welcome a business representative, Sunil Halbe who is the General Manager for Group Finance at Arcelor Mittal. Let’s hear Sunil’s story from a CFO point of view on Strategic Innovation and Diversity: Corporate and Local Collaboration Team realignment, Leadership and Motivation

Parallel with this session runs the Talent & Employee Engagement Track chaired by Paul Turner.

We shall start this Track with a really interesting presentation on Talent management , diversity & inclusion at Starwood by Ingrid Eras, VP People Development and Staffing EAME.

Thereafter attendees may get an insight by Paul Turner about Employee Engagement in Europe – an original research done by the HCM Excellence Network – a learning community we operate on LinkedIn.

After Lunch, Neil Edwards , Head of HR , Nestlé will deliver a fascinating case on The business of growth in FMCG – how small changes make a big impact in driving innovation through people.

Then the German pharma giant, Bayer’s VP for HR and Talent Development, Marcello Yoshida, will highlight Global Talent Management –Changes, Challenges and Complexity and what it means for Bayer.

The 3rd Track will be all about Leadership and Talent Development.

Firstly Eva Somorjai, Hungary’s No 1 telecom operator’s CHRO will highlight what Telekom does in order to identify, engage and retain future leaders in a high performance environment.

This will be followed by a very interesting insight of a Scandinavian case study on  ‘Leadership in Action’: Developing leaders where leadership really takes place! by Henrik Kongsbak, Partner, Resonans and Rikke Agerskov, HR Partner, Novo Nordisk.

Then let’s get provocative: our Track chair, Kieran Hearty will challenge the audience whether Gender balance in leadership positions – does diversity drive business performance?

After the elective tracks we shall close the day with a fascinating, M-Prize winner keynote on Statoil’s  radical departure from traditional management – all driven by a passion to be an agile and human place to work by Bjarte Bogsnes - Vice President Performance Management Development.

… and the summit is still not over, Day 3 is ahead!

We shall kick off Day 3, 15th November by a Dave Ulrich keynote. Those of you who saw Dave last year know what to expect, a high energy, superb content presentation – 1 hour will go by like a moment! His question for this year: What it takes for HR to deliver sustained Value?

Day 3 is all about Action Learning, let’s get our hands dirty and roll up the sleeves during peer-led workshop sessions!

There will be Four really cool workshops run by your peers in parallel with Professor Ulrich’s masterclass sessions. Sorry folks, Dave’s masterclasses are separately bookable – yet all seats are sold out by now…

So the peer led masterclass sessions are:

1. Ingrid Eras will deliver a 3 hrs session on Gen Y Attraction, Engagement and Career Management – fashionable topic, however the folks at Starwood have really nailed to subject!

2. Paul Turner will team up with Danny Kallman, Global Talent Management Director at Panasonic, who will fly in all the way from Japan to teach about Talent – a Formula for Success.

3. Join Annemie Ress again from Ebay to dive into some thought provoking ideas about engagement, intrinsic motivation and the true drives of performance.

4. last but not least Kieran Hearty is here again, the former T&D Director at Emea for Intel will deliver a truly high performance workshop on how to eat the Elephant in the Room – investigating the key drivers of team performance. What elephant? Join Kieran’s session to find out more.

After the afternoon coffee break (great latte again!) come back for a fascinating closing keynote by Cranfield lecturer Trish Thurley on the Challenger story - The Shuttle Case – Working at the Limits of Safety. A thought provoking case study of the importance of Leadership derail and communication.

So yes, we have worked very hard to bring a truly amazing three days together for you, I am sure it will be 3 days well spent. See you all at Human Asset 2012 on 13-15 November in Boscolo Budapest

Leadership Demystified – interview with Dr. Gareth Jones

„Great organisations become great because of their talents. You have to keep your eye on an absolutely critical thing and ask yourself: Is this an organisation where the best people want to be?”

(Gareth Jones)

Hundreds if not thousands of articles and books have been written about the subject of leadership. Many authors and thinkers  have tried to list those attributes, which are essential to become an effective leader. Yet, organisations still find it a challenge to develop leadership that impacts across the organisation. A recent interview with Dr. Gareth Jones, visiting Professor at London Business School, INSEAD, Instituto de Empresa in Madrid reveals a more holistic view on this ever-green question

PODCAST

 Download the Interview in PDF

Talent – A Formula for Success, Interview with Dave Ulrich

I spoke to Dr. Dave Ulrich about Talent, a formula for success. There are as many definitions on the word “Talent” as many organizations are out there.

According to Dave there are four ways to define Talent. One; C-suite executives, Talent is about building succession, to make sure you have the next generation of leaders, tailoring development experience for the leaders so they work well as a team.

The second level of talent is the senior leadership group within the company; not the C-suite but the group below that, what it’s called the “leadership cadre”. For them the organization must build a leadership academy where there is a leadership brand they buy into.

The third level of talent are the high potential individuals- those who have the change to lead the company and set the agenda for the future. They are defined with 4 A/s

  • Ambition
  • Agility
  • Ability
  • Achievement

For those individual must be a tailored individual development program in place.

The fourth level of talent filters all the way through the company. They have what we call the “talent formula” – good talent anywhere in the company is who are

  • Competent – able to do the work
  • Committed – willing to work hard
  • Contributing – they find meaning from the work they do

Listen to the entire podcast below, covering additional issues on leadership succession, the role of HR:

Download the related whitepaper: Dave Ulrich – Norm Smallwood – What is Talent

Finding Meaning at Work – interview with Dr. Dave Ulrich

Dr. Dave Ulrich is a Professor of Business, Ross School of Business, University of Michigan is undoubtedly one of the most significant expert in strategic HR. When Ulrich speaks, the profession listens.

His achievements are numerous,

…to name a few.

This interview is discussing what the requirements are to find meaning at work, what the business rational behind building ‘abundant organizations’ that  provides meaning to its employees, creates value for its stakeholders, and offers hope for humanity

Interview excerpts:

Mihaly Nagy: Your recent book the “Why of Work” is based on a simple premise: “Employees who find meaning at work will have a better work experience that will translate into improved performance, more satisfied customers, and more profitable companies.” This notion is probably not a surprise for anyone, however the question is what specific steps can an organization do in order to achieve this? Is there a recipe for success?

Dave Ulrich: We culled the literatures on meaning to identify what specific things leaders could do to instill meaning at work. We identified seven actions leaders could take to become meaning makers, each of which is associated with a question they can answer for themselves and their employees:

  1. Identity: Who am I? Employees have more meaning when the strengths which shape their identity are used to strengthen others.
  2. Purpose: where am I going? Employees have more meaning when they work in a company that has a meaningful purpose that engages them.
  3. Relationships: Who do I travel with? Employees have more meaning when they work with people they admire, respect, and feel connected to.
  4. Work environment: What are the routines or culture of our work? Employees have more meaning when their work setting is positive and affirming.
  5. Work challenges: What work do I do? Employees have more meaning when they are doing work that excites and energizes them.
  6. Learning and Growth: What do I learn from at work? Employees have more meaning when they are able to learn and grow from the work they do.
  7. Civility and Delight: Employees have more meaning when they bring a sense of fun and delight into their work.

These are clearly not exclusive and the only factors that provide meaning, but when people we talk to think about “what makes your work meaningful?’ generally their answers fall into one of these seven dimensions.

Listen to the entire podcast here:

Download the Interview in whitepaper format:

If you are interested in interacting with Professor Ulrich in person join the 8th Annual Human Asset Summit on 13-15 November in Boscolo Budapest. More info: www.humanassetsummit.com