is 80%

One week ago, my wife sent me a photo on WhatsApp. When I opened the photo, the first point that drew my attention was the strong resilience and high self-confidence of the person on the photo. The shades and lighting on the photo were so meticulously done that you could not help but feel empowered by looking at the person on the photo. That was the photo of Miles Davis, the legendary jazz musician and composer, and the following sentences were written below it:

“Miles Davis // Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the person who plays it is 80%.”

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Last week I had the pleasure of giving an interactive keynote talk at an elite, boutique style conference called HR Vision Amsterdam which took place on June 6th and 7th 2018. Key opinion leaders and high level HR professionals from leading multinational companies shared their insights on a wide range of topics from blockchain in HR to artificial intelligence and the importance of neuroscience in employer branding among other topics. Normally, after such conferences I write a short article about my key learnings which mainly focus on the content shared by experts. This time, my key learnings are not about the content, of which I learned a great deal, but about the attitude of the people I met in the conference.

It was a morning break on the first day of the conference. I approached a table where there were drinks. On the other side of the table I saw a conference attendee. “How is the conference going on?” I asked him. At one point during our conversation, he said: “I am here to learn”. I got that sentence stuck on my mind. In the evening when I went back to my hotel, I took his business card out of my pocket. It turns out that he was the co-founder of one of the most successful companies in the world in the area of cultural change. He was also the CEO of that company for more than 20 years. Recently, he wrote a book which is endorsed by Stephen Covey. I think the smarter a person is, the humbler she/he gets. Humbleness was my first key learning from the event. Here is the book of the gentleman I met, John Childress.

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“Speaker” was written on my badge. That is why almost everyone I met on the 1st day of the conference was asking to me: “Ah, you are a speaker. So, what are you going to talk about?” I tried to give general answers without going too much into details. I just wanted it to be a surprise for people. In many cases, these conversations did not just focus on business topics but also on life. Almost always the person in front of me had an inquisitive mind to learn and share. Genuine interest to learn from others and share information with others was my second key learning from the event.

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The big day came. At 11.00 o’clock on the second day of the conference I gave my interactive keynote talk which covered key factors influencing collaboration at work, importance of experiential learning to create a collaborative work culture, best practices and a remarkable learning experience. Through experiential learning around 130 attendees showed the power of a collaborative work culture with a focus on active listening and creating synergy. Right after the interactive session, I got very positive feedback. Still, I wanted to get more feedback to improve. Overall, people have been open to share feedback with me. Out of all the responses, one stood out. It was about the importance of focusing attention in active listening and freeing up some cognitive bandwidth to listen better. “How do we listen to others while also regulating our own responses to be able to contribute in a genuinely collaborative manner?” was one of his sentences. He gave me food for thought, in fact one of the most intellectually stimulating feedback I received recently. I am talking about the feedback of Jonathan Reams, the co-founder of the European Center for Leadership Practice and Associate Professor at Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Insightful feedback helps us all improve. Giving and receiving insightful feedback was my third key learning from the event.

As Miles Davis would say: “Anybody can play. The note is only 20 percent. The attitude of the person who plays it is 80%.” Now change the word “play” in the quote with another word, for instance “learn”, “share”, or “give feedback”.

Kudos to Nick Tyrell, the founder of HR Vision, and the whole team, especially Manpreet Pattar, Lynne Martin & Olympia Nolan for organising this conference & bringing such a unique group of people together.