February 2007

Host: Duke University

Theme: Daring to Have Real Conversations

Following on from November's theme, Laura at Centrica mentioned the hot topic sessions they are running on "Daring to have real conversations?" Research by Career Innovations and the book "Crucial Conversations" by Joseph Grenier were cited.  The challenges for leaders facing downsizing situations of showing their vulnerability were also discussed as a barrier to having real conversations.

We also discussed the link to engagement looking at work going on in BA at the moment and the importance of the organisation aligning around a core topic whether the values or Business plan, as long as there was real alignment. Art Kleiner’s book "Who really matters? The Core Group" was also referenced.

June 2007

Host: British Airways

Theme: Talent – How do we Really Develop Talent – in the Short, Medium and Long Term?

Highlights of the discussion included:

• The importance of getting Board buy in and senior sponsorship 
• Key that business strategy drives the Talent management strategy e.g. global growth outside UK; markets in China, APAC 
• Importance of critical roles - e.g. Top 100 roles rather than people, and what’s the critical role that people have to have done to succeed in company? 
• Focus on the Future needs i.e. leader and skills that the world of tomorrow needs rather than being based in today’s assumptions 
• Recognition that increasingly 28-40 year olds may actually say “no thank you” to more top roles, having seen what cost involves in terms of work-life balance 
• Challenge of getting mobility across cultures e.g. mid west US not wanting to come to Europe or in under developed markets getting the talent to stay in their home country as nationals who are very marketable e.g. oil producing nations 
• Global mind set – about complexity of thinking and can this be assessed? 
• Gifted Leaders – do large organisations reject talent as too hard to handle? 
• Importance of line managers role – and focus on developing their skills to develop talent 
• Access by self assessment to early talent schemes to avoid line management blocks 
• Steering group of senior managers on Talent actually a developmental process for them 
• Challenges of systems for capturing data – no one satisfied with their system! 
• Development approaches such as shadow boards, Discovery learning taking people to very different environments and exploring how they lead, non executive roles as preparation for Board roles 
• Coaching as a development process – recognition that often organisations don’t get ROI on coaching or get the organisational learning they could do from it

August & September 2007

Host: Department for Work and Pensions

Theme: Gifted Leadership & Developing Organisational Capability

 In August the members of the LVN were invited to a workshop on Gifted Leadership being run by Karen Ward at DWP with Dr. Mary E. Jacobsen. The day included introductory discussions and exercises about giftedness: what we think it is, and what it actually is (based on research and evidence), and went on to cover:

• the current worldwide “war for talent”
• how, despite billions of pounds spent annually on high potentials and their development, many organizations are still unclear how to select for potential and how to retain and value high potentials once they are selected
• the benefits and challenges of giftedness in organizational settings
• what we can do to begin to explore how our attitudes towards gifted individuals impact how we develop them

This theme was picked up again for the regular LVN meeting in September were we looked at Developing Organisational Capability.  Highlights of the conversations include:

• What do we mean by Organisational Capability and how do we use the term? Evidence that it’s not widely understood, an umbrella term across OD, Organisational Learning, Strategic Resourcing, Leadership Development and perhaps harder to get buy in to, some examples from GSK & DWP.
• In government there’s been a strong focus on Capability following the Capability Reviews (external group of leaders assessing and giving feedback to each govt dept) and the feedback has prompted organisational change and leadership development.
• Challenges for the corporate centre of how to grow strategic alignment in OD across decentralised organisations like GSK or across a huge government department made up of several businesses (e.g. over 100,000 people in DWP:- Job Centre Plus, Pensions Service, DCS, etc) and the need to partner actively with different parts of the business, and to link across silos using viral approaches to get successes across.
• This led to the topic of self leadership we will cover in November and the importance of sustaining engagement of individuals, and helping them manage themselves as their own scarce resource, including resilience, physical health.
• We also touched on the Net Generation and the need for leaders of younger leaders to really listen to those in the new generations- and for those in the music business to get in tune with how 13 year olds think, how they are using internet, social networking - a theme for next time!

November 2007

Host: GlaxoSmithKline

Theme: Self Leadership - Leadership Development through 'Sustainable High Performance - The Corporate Athlete'

We had a great session at GSK led by Adrian Machon at the end of 2007 on their Strategic Leadership framework and the inspiring focus on Self Leadership and Self management, based on the Corporate Athlete concept from the Human Performance Institute in USA, drawing on ways of sustaining performance through the pressures of busy lives for global executives, looking at research from sports, and holistic approaches to spiritual and emotional resilience inspired by "The Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle.  The theme of leadership was requested to be continued at the next meeting with a focus on:

• Leaders v Leadership
• The leadership conversation – integrity and authenticity
• Leadership Transitions – how do senior leaders leave their mark