What I learnt from Barack Obama

Never mind that we stood in a line that snaked around the San Diego Convention Centre for more than 2 hours since 6.30am in the morning just to get into the hall. Or that we could only find seats about three-quarters of the way to the back of the massive room. The two figures on stage were minuscule from where we were, but the one-hour facilitated conversation that took place on stage was larger than life.

The moment the keynote speaker stepped into view, the 10,000-strong crowd went wild. Tony Bingham, CEO of ATD and host for the session only had to say "Please welcome, Mr Barack Obama", and everyone was on their feet, applauding, screaming, cheering, whistling, taking photos and videos with their phones. The standing ovation went on for what seemed like a lifetime, the atmosphere filled with euphoria, excitement and adoration.

Yes, I finally got to experience the Obama effect. I feel lucky to have the 44th President of the United States of America as our opening keynote speaker at the Association for Talent Development's International Conference and Exposition on the occasion of the 75th Anniversary of the association.

I feel even luckier to watch LIVE how this giant of a man handled a conversation that spanned the width of topics including education, resilience, culture, making decisions, values, managing change, and the future. For the most part, he was charming, thoughtful, and spoke with clarity and conviction. He was also playful, humorous and witty - he made a remark that "our democracy can’t work, if for example, we don’t insist on facts" - which got the audience sniggering at a possible reference to another other political leader. Most of all, he was real, and humble. Listening to him talk, I forgot the fact that he was the youngest man - and the first African American - to be elected to hold office as the most powerful man on earth. It felt like I was listening to a wise friend share about his adventures in life.

Here are lessons I learnt from Barack Obama :

Education: Though he didn't come from a wealthy background, his family nurtured him to value education. "All I had was education."

Focus on doing the right thing: He shared how he "got smashed, got hammered" when he first ran for congress in 2000. He reflected that he lost because he was impatient, and didn't check the polls before he announced. But the defeat taught him: "to make sure that you are doing something because it is the right thing to do, not because you want to be something. Worry less about what you want to be, but more about what you want to do. People are obsessed with titles... they don't spend enough time figuring out what they want to accomplish."

Success: He shared how people become successful because they were passionate about what they did, and kept at it. "If you are doing those things every day that is meaningful to you, over time, you will rise in position of importance. Even for people like Bill Gates. They didn’t start off thinking they want to be Gazillionaires!"

Failure: He spoke about how he created an environment that was ok to fail - "provided you learn from it, not make excuses or try to cover it up. Most things that are worth doing are hard. If it is easy, everybody else would have done it already."

Working as a team: "The great thing about us humans is that when we work as teams, and when we are willing to try things out, and learn from our experiences, we can achieve extraordinary stuff, even if we individually have our blind spots, or flaws.

Evaluation: "When you make a mistake, we evaluate what we could have done better. We do the same when we succeeded – what did we do well, so that we can do that again."

Resilience: He shared the story of a 22-year old Chinese-American man from L.A. who went to rural Iowa to work on his campaign. Over time, he was successful in winning over the community not because of Obama's campaign points, but because "he had a set of values that carried him through."

Solving problems: "The only thing that lands on your desk is stuff that doesn’t have good solutions. If it could be figured out perfectly, somebody would have figured it out."

Making good decisions: "Where I see failure is when there are institutional biases, people being scared to bring bad news, so you don’t have all the informatrion to make decisions. How do you create an effective system for good feedback, accurate data, people no matter how junior feel confident to speak up about something that is not working. That kind of culture doesn’t mean you are always going to get things right, but you are going to be in a best position possible in making good decisions."

Values: "Being honest, working hard, being kind, being useful, carrying your weight, being responsible. These are what I try and transmit to my children and staff. Values reflect how you interact with people on a day to day basis, the kinds of habits you develop, that transcend any particular issue or situation, and as a consequence, they become your foundation, your baseline, and those are the things that will get you through hard times and good times. Those are the things that will allow you to sustain effort in a group. And those are the things that give meaning and purpose of what you do, so that people are willing to go above and beyond the surface elements of getting paid."

Preparing for the job: "What prepared me best were the principles that I had grown for 30, 40 years. Specifics (of the job) you can consume later. It is the habits of performance that you have cultivated over time. Take a long view and not get too high when things are high, and too low when things are low. I didn’t buy the hype.

Training: "When you are most effective at training somebody is to get them to tap onto their best self, to overcome their insecurities, to be open to new ideas, and to get them to be respectful of others they are working with – those things are what makes or breaks your organisation."

Change: "I can’t change until I recognize that there is something in my current circumstance I am not satisfied with. So I think: teach people to be honest" (so they can recognise what their current circumstance is, and that it is not satisfying, so they can decide to make the change). "Break up change into its component parts... Don’t expect perfect immediately... Important that you are on the right track... It (change) is hard because you are always building off on a legacy. Often times it isn’t terrible, it is just what it could be. You got to build a bridge from where people are to where they want to be...Give them confidence that they are not flying blind."

Future: "I am cautiously optimistic" because of several trends: Technology is driving disruptive change at a pace we've never seen before; the world is shrinking - which means we have to learn to work with different people with different ideas and backgrounds; globalisation and technology changes brings about economic changes, which drives up stress, and gives rise to the temptation of 'tribalism'; and there's climate change. "I’m optimistic because the trend line is pretty good, if you take the long view. Progress is each of us taking responsibility for making things a little bit better, that you are making sure people you work with are treated with respect, that more women voices are being heard, that the LGBT person is given respect and dignity. If each of us take that responsibility – understanding that no single one of us can solve all the problems, have a sense of humor and be forgiving about our foibles and that none of us is perfect – if you are kind and useful, you will figure it out."