Lean in, Listen and Learn

August is the Willow Creek Leadership Conference.

I really look forward to this event.  It is an opportunity to sit back and absorb; lean in, listen and learn.

One of the speakers again this year was Patrick Lencioni.  There have been some very valuable takeaways from past years with Patrick.  Patrick works around the world to develop teams.  There are some very basic foundational concepts with teams to understand.  Those principals are in his book, Five Dysfunctions of a Team.  

Teams trust one another. They engage in unfiltered conflict around ideas.  They commit to decisions and plans of actions. They hold one another accountable for delivering against those plans. They focus on the achievement of collective results.  

These fundamentals are not easy to achieve.

This year Mr. Lencioni introduced some new absolutes. Teams are built from people and there are some givens we need to seek when adding to a team.  These three principles are discussed in what he calls a precursor to five dysfunctions in his new book, The Ideal Team Player.

Yes, we bought the book!  

Additionally we were able to hear, Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  Her call is for an equitable world . The statistics she shared about how women in Nairobi or Bangladesh are changing their communities with just a little help are unbelievable.

Alan Mulally, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Ford Motor Company from 2006 to 2014 spoke about the norms he has implemented in his leadership at both Ford and Boeing.  Remember Ford was the only major US car manufacturer  who did not take money in the bail out!

Horst Schulze, CEO, Capella Hotel Group; Founding President, The Ritz-Carlton Group, talked about making sure you know where and what costs you can cut.

Chris McChesney, Executive at Franklin Covey who is a Wall Street Journal #1 national bestselling author of the book, 4 Disciplines of Execution  reminded me to focus on the wildly important.

The insights simply kept coming.  As I unpack, read, study and implement these concepts over the next several months I will share them on the blog.  

In short reflection the speakers and motivators were saying  the very simple principle:  “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”  Not difficult to understand, hard  play out in life.

Ken and I are in Alaska the last week of August and we purposefully plan to schedule time to both reflect and develop a blueprint allowing us to serve others  more in 2017.