Leadership Live 24, takeaways

Second year for me at @leaders, organised by The Institute of Leadership . A very good use of time to upskill from lots of insights and ideas. If you were there and didn't take notes, or didn't get there, here are some things I took away.

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First up was Russell Beck . It was a shocker of a start with some pretty unexpected stats about things happening in our world and projections for the future. Plus, there is an update on Mores Law, where (and I’m simplifying a bit as it's all about microchips) "Computer power doubles every 2 years” compared to AI (at the moment), which is “doubling in power every 6 months”.

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He then emphasised a point that I've long agreed with, even before the rise of AI, while thinking about advising my daughter on how to succeed and be happy in the workforce (a topic we'll discuss further with Ed Haddon ). The point is that while machines excel at certain tasks, creativity and people skills will always be valuable and in demand. At the CIPD Festival of Work conference, when asked about AI, Alex Mahon , CEO of Channel 4 , echoed this sentiment, noting that AI can write scripts and plots, but it can only draw from the past. We still need creative people to generate new ideas.

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Russel also pointed out that people skills, and my specific area of interest, people management in particular, shouldn’t be considered as ‘soft skills’ as it’s a term that doesn’t do them justice. They should be regarded as 'hard skills'. It depends on your definition of each, but I agree with the point about their importance.

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He made the point that not all senior teams genuinely value and invest adequately in an effective approach to developing great management skills (shameless plug for some world-class online courses and assessments, check out: https://upskillpeople.com/managing-people/ ). However, when asked if any CEO would like 1% more productivity, they would, of course, all say yes, and the result would be significant on any organisation’s performance. But would they invest? Only sometimes.

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Next, we got Ed Haddon . He kicked off with a topic close to my heart (and head) since I formed Upskill People 30 years ago. He explained that the word success comes from two Latin words, one meaning a ‘good result’ and one meaning a ‘happy outcome’. I did Google it and asked ChatGPT, but I couldn’t find the two words (I’m just curious like that, feel free to clarify Ed). Either way, it doesn't matter, as I’ve always believed that it’s more than just the numbers.

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He continued with something every good manager/leader/communicator knows (even if it took some of us a while to figure it out), the best talk less, listen more and ask great questions. As an experienced coach, his shameless plug was for the value of coaching as he said, "Leaders can be lonely". I get what he means, but he also reminded me of Alex Mahon interview at the Festival of Work again when asked about this common quote, she said she didn't agree as her team often "followed her to the toilet", and she was "never lonely".

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Ed wrapped up with the summary that happy achievers are people with great relationships, achieving quality results that impact the world, which they are proud of. Bottom line, more engagement, less turnover, more productivity. I agree, especially after working with some of my team for over 20 years.

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When it comes to delivering quality and impact, there was a clear link to something else Russell Beck Beck said about achieving (happy) success in this AI world (yes, everyone has to mention AI at least once). His advice was that “Average isn’t good enough anymore”, but for me, it's working smarter together (using the best tools), not always harder, which brings us back to those people management skills again.

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His bit of interactivity was to ask us to define our individual success 'buckets', the three top-level personal goals that would give us happy success, and then start to work out how to achieve them. It's worth 5 minutes of anyone's time, and if you can't write them down after being asked in less than 60 seconds, perhaps that's the reason enough for doing them, to give yourself a bit of focus. After all, if you don't know where you want to get to, you can't plot a route (and especially one you’ll enjoy).

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Next, we were introduced to Steve Hayes . He talked about communication, and I’m sure a few people groaned at the beginning. As we all know, “communication is the key to most things”, and it’s talked about a lot.

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He focussed on 'crafting' communication and how a tiny percentage of what we push out there is truly thought through. We've all dashed something out without really thinking it through at times, well I have anyway. I looked up the dictionary definition of ‘crafting’. It's the activity of skilfully creating something (from the Cambridge Dictionary). The point is that most communication within an organisation is from person to person. He quoted a global survey stating that “84% of colleagues rely on their manager for communication”. Most of us can say it's easy to agree with that from our experiences.

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I agree with Steve that the managers in an organisation bring a business strategy to life, they make sure everyone knows what to do to play their part, and make things happen. Beyond this, they are the ones being clear on how success will be measured, and coming back to Ed's talk, this should be 'happy success'.

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He also had a great quote “The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place”.

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It's why one of the seven key competencies all managers should be upskilled in is communication. You can find a list of the other six and the underpinning 69 behaviours for all of them here: https://upskillpeople.com/resources/managers-measured/ .

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We moved on to the world of performance sports, champions have a lot in common with high-performing organisations teams. There are few more highly performing individuals than Olympic gold medallists, such as Kate Richardson-Walsh OLY OBE , a top hockey player, who was up next.

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Her insights were all about the importance of culture and management styles. Want to know more? There's an article here on defining culture: https://upskillpeople.com/resources/what-is-company-culture/ , and one here on the main different styles a manager should know about and when to use each: https://upskillpeople.com/resources/what-is-your-management-style/ .

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She started in a place where things weren’t right, with an autocratic style and a toxic culture within the squad. She gave a real case study based on Danny Kerry, the team coach. He dared to not just ask for feedback, but took it on board and drove change.

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Cultural change is one of the most difficult challenges for any organisation, and on looking up Danny, I found a quote from him that sums it all up: "Culture precedes performance”. His story was a playbook on changing culture and empowering people.

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He developed himself as a decision-maker and leader and worked with his team to develop a shared vision (just one word, "Gold")! One great thing I picked up was when confronted with a decision or a need to do something that they didn't know how to do, or hadn't done before, they simply asked themselves, "What would a gold medallist do?". I'm sure Ed would agree this is one of the better questions to ask. This approach can be used in any situation people find themselves in, business or personal.

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Another one was the importance of trust as it underpins everything, and Kate told the story of building trust one pebble at a time, putting pebbles into a jar until it’s full. This was linked to another question to ask yourself, “How do you want to be remembered?”. For me this doesn’t just mean after life, but remembered after a meeting, after a project or after a time in a role when you’ve moved on. Powerful stuff.

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Finally, we had Scott Walker . Negotiation is a crucial business skill, but when you're negotiating for someone's life, it's on a whole new level, and Scott gained experience in doing just that over 300 times.

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He began by offering some clarity on negotiation, explaining that it involves influencing or persuading to get collaboration and a desired outcome. We all engage in negotiation daily, ?both in our work and personal lives, and it typically involves a conversation with one or more people. The real skill lies in understanding that it’s about people and that we are “Emotional creatures that think”, not “Thinking creatures that feel”. So, separating the person from the problem and considering the emotional element, how someone wants to feel, can be the key to unlocking any barriers and progressing to a mutually acceptable outcome.

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Trust came up again, a very commonly used word but something that has always been important to me. Kate Richardson-Walsh’s pebbles in a jar is the perfect illustration, building it slowly.

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The importance of active listening, and improved communication that results, is a game changer in many communications (that word again – there's a reason communication is talked about so much in business). It leads to understanding, rapport, change and finally, influence, but you can't rush it. Again, we're back to asking better questions, to get better answers. It is simple to say but a real skill to consistently do. It’s good to be curious.

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I had the benefit of reading a great book by someone with a similar background, this time from the US, called “Never Split Difference” by Christopher Voss , which is fascinating, so I’m very much looking forward to reading Scott’s book “Order out of chaos”, which I now have a copy of.

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That’s my highlights. Communication came up repeatedly, and quite rightly, we all have to keep working on that. ChatGPT is commonly used, and we must communicate better to achieve great outcomes. I experimented recently, interviewing ChatGPT as a podcast guest, and I got a pretty amazing outcome. It took 45 minutes of briefing and asking the right questions before the interview began, this is what I’d do with any other guest. You can see the result here (and how good avatars are these days, when working from just words): https://youtu.be/XIqJmJ2H-4g .

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I have to end by congratulating Karen Usmani MIoL and her colleagues, including Rebecca Martin , Jane Nicholson-Biss and Jerome Goodluck for organising such a professional event (as usual) and curating such a great lineup, as well as my fellow 2m+ tall man John Mark Williams . I look up to him in more ways than one.

?#ll24, #FestivalofWork, #, Upskill People , #helpingpeopleshine, #management, #managingpeople