Posted by: Common Purpose | 8 February 2010

When will future UK leaders learn?

Not that it comes as a surprise, but the talk of widespread education cuts in the UK has hit the news headlines today. In fact, the headlines have been there for a bit.

Projected cuts to universities mean fewer places and a brain drain of teaching and research talent, and The Prince’s Trust has also released a report: ‘Britian’s Lost Talent’ – projecting a fairly bleak outlook for emerging talent across the board.

A university education isn’t mandatory for success or for leaders to thrive (it helps), but it is not a positive sign when overall investment in learning, knowledge and developing future leaders becomes a recurring thread in public debate.

Personnel Today reported in January 2009 that the Leitch Review of skills was criticised for being unrealistic and only four months later, reported on the UK Commission for Employment and Skills (UKCES)’s findings that the Leitch Review targets were potentially ‘doomed’. In the May 2009 article, Mike Rake, chairman of the Commission, is quoted as saying: “The key to our economic renewal is to invest in human capital now – to deploy energy and resources in building the UK’s skills base.”

There is no doubt that a failure to continue to invest in education will impact on wealth creation and social mobility in the UK. There is also no doubt that a volatile global market in general is making projections of how much the UK can invest in its future talent a little jumpy – to say the least.

Going on today’s mood, however, it’s a grim outlook for the development of the UK’s future generations. It is troubling to think that the UK might not invest in knowledge creation at a time when it needs emerging leaders and increasing talent more than ever.

Mark Spelman, Global Head of Strategy at Accenture, wrote an interesting Viewpoint for the BBC from Davos last month, which highlighted the need for a different perspective on skills – and for current (never mind future) leaders to learn some new tricks.

So perhaps the question should not be where and when our future leaders will learn – but how they will?

Manpower Inc. chairman and CEO, Jeff Joerres (a member of the Global Agenda Council on the Skills Gap) outlined four key trends that will impact global talent and skills at the World Economic Forum. These were:

  • Talent mismatch
  • The issue of supply and demand for rare skills and retaining unique talent
  • The need for innovation, value and efficiency to ensure sophisticated levels of customer satisfaction
  • Technology impacting organisations’ agility and ability to innovate

The World Economic Forum website features a helpful outline of the panel discussion ‘Skills Creation: The Future of Employment’. Perhaps there’s room for a rethink of what kind of learning and leadership development will require investment.

One thing is for certain – flexibility will be key. Our future leaders and talents will need to have the ability to develop relationships, work across multiple sectors and cultures, and adapt to change in order to succeed.

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Posted by: Common Purpose | 2 February 2010

Have you thought about developing your leadership through LinkedIn?

The Common Purpose blog welcomes guest blogger Kwai Yu, the founder of the Leaders Café Foundation, which has a mission to make leadership learning affordable to everyone by creating space for people to think independently. The Leaders Café Foundation has grown to include hundreds of members across the world largely through Kwai’s inventive use of the business networking website LinkedIn. Read on to find out more about how you or your organisation could benefit from smarter use of LinkedIn…

Your web site may be sitting there waiting for visitors to come along but not so for LinkedIn, because it has 55 million users who regularly visit. The best thing is that you don’t even have to pay to reach these 55 million people. You just need to figure out a way to attract their attention.

The paradox with online networking is that it is difficult to put into practice the usual nine influencing tactics of reasoning, inspiring, inquiring, make them feel good, strike a deal, swapping favours, using silent allies, authority and force. There are three reasons why this is the case.

Firstly, most people joining LinkedIn are focused on themselves and use a discussion or comment as a disguise to leave their ‘online’ business card. Secondly, most people tend to fall back on reasoning to get their point across and a discussion then ends up as a verbal arm-wrestling contest. Thirdly, they underestimate the time, effort, and skill required to engage in a fluid and dynamic conversation.

To get benefits from online business networking, you need to invest time and energy to build your reputation. It is your reputation that influences and attracts people. People want insight not ‘Inmails’. The more insights you share, the more people will see you as an expert. The more valuable you become in your network, the more people will be attracted to you and so your reputation grows. Over time, people start to look to you to facilitate connections with other people. In short, you become more than your CV, you become an invaluable asset in your network. In benefiting others, you become the benefit of online business networking.

You can connect with Kwai via LinkedIn.

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Posted by: Common Purpose | 28 January 2010

Leader digest – World Economic Forum reading

As the 40th World Economic Forum Annual Meeting takes place in Switzerland this week, there will be a lot to read, see, hear and analyse, so at Common Purpose we’re sharing our World Economic Forum digest.

There are 2,500 leaders across sectors and from countries around the world in Davos tackling some of the biggest challenges of our time.

It’s not a question of struggling to be informed – it’s a case of information overload! What to read? What to read?

Well, on scanning over the past day – and going forward – here’s a list of Common Purpose’s pick of the sites covering Davos. This is kept in no particular order – just articles and clips we found interesting for their perspective on leadership, so we’ll update it as we go…

  • The World Economic Forum website: all the up to date information you need on the Annual Meeting.
  • The World Economic Forum live webcasts.
  • The Times online: in the UK, Jenny Booth is writing ‘as it happens’ updates on the Times Online. Great summary overview, and you can sign up to get the news by email.
  • New York Times & the International Herald Tribune’s Davos Diary: Hear it from The Times and The International Herald Tribune writers direct from Switzerland.
  • BusinessWeek’s Davos Digest: a helpful daily summary.
  • Reuters UK: live coverage.
  • The FT: interesting analysis and commentary.
  • Read the opening speech (in English or French) by Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the French Republic, calling for a ‘new Bretton Woods’.
  • Very interesting exchange on ‘Downloading Davos Live with The Editor of The Times, James Harding’. The editor’s parting answer to the question: ‘what will you take away from this year’s forum?’ was:”…the financial crisis of 2007-11 – because, I’m afraid, that’s what it will be – has accelerated the transfer of power from West to East, from the developed world to the developing world. The global recession has clearly looked very different from Beijing than it looked from Birmingham.”
  • Special Address by Li Keqiang, Executive Vice-Premier, State Council of the People’s Republic of China – webcast.
  • BusinessWeek – Lee: G20 will set post-crisis agenda.
  • AFP overview from Michael Thurston – Clinton asks for trucks and speaks of opportunity in Haiti. Li Keqiang speaks of confidence and calls for accountability and discipline. Papandreaou says Greece is no “weak link”. Lee Myung-bak joins Sarkozy in telling bank chiefs not to oppose reforms.
  • The Rise of Developing Countries – New York Times.
  • The Huffington Post: Bradley S. Klapper reports on the focus on Haiti, the emergence of China and David Cameron’s pledge that ‘as [UK] prime minister he would go toe-to-toe with British bankers to bring them in line’.
  • The alternative to Davos: Al Jazeera reports on the dialogue taking place at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.
  • David Ignatius has posed the question: ‘What’s the attraction of Davos?’ – Washington Post online. He points out that you don’t really need to go this year. ‘Davos is everywhere now. The idea that it represented — of networked global business and politics — is now a pervasive fact of life. You don’t have to go to Switzerland this week to find it; just connect up your iPhone or your laptop, and you can wander into the world that Davos symbolizes and, in its own relentless way, helped create,’ he writes.
  • Actually – the Washington Post’s Davos Diary makes for good reading in general…colourful commentary rather than in-depth analysis, but still good reading.
  • Davos honours Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as ‘global statesman’. Read about it in BusinessWeek.
  • Bill and Melinda Gates donate $10 billion over the next decade to research, develop and deliver vaccines to the poorest nations according to the Boston Globe.
  • Watch ‘Davos Annual Meeting 2010 – Will India Meet Global Expectations?’ on YouTube.

The round-up

Now that it’s all over, here’s the ’round-up’ coverage for those salient, take-away thoughts:

  • ‘5-Day Davos Forum Ends on Note of Humility’ – according to ABC News.
  • ‘DAVOS-A week of tense bankers, recovery hopes, star gazers’ – according to Reuters.
  • A day-by-day slideshow from The Hindu.
  • Darling speaks of a UK ‘on the road to a sustained economic recovery’ according to the Observer.
  • Gloom for the West as China inexorably rises according to the Mail Online in the UK.
  • Josef Ackermann, chairman of Deutsche Bank says: “We all know something has to happen quickly to restore confidence in the system.” – according to the New York Times.

So that’s it. See you here this time next year.

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Posted by: Common Purpose | 18 December 2009

Leader of the decade

This week, TIME magazine announced its Person of the Year.

The current affairs bible developed the notion of a ‘Man of the Year’ in response to an anticipated slow news week back in 1927, in the prelude to an era that shaped the scholarship of this year’s winner. This year…at a time when news cycles are anything but slow, but the economy in America is a different matter, we have Federal Reserve Chairman, Ben Bernanke’s name up in lights.

“He was the great scholar of the Depression who saw another depression coming, and did everything he could to stop it,” said TIME’s managing editor, Richard Stengel. [Source: MSNBC]

Let’s take a moment to consider the predecessors to this mass media honour since we stepped into the New Millennium.

This is always a controversial decision, and Mr Bernanke had a tough act to follow with Barrack Obama being elected for the hot-selling cover of TIME last year.

Considering his significant decline in popularity on exiting the White House, it’s hard to believe that George W Bush’s portrait took pride of place as we heralded the New Millennium – and he got another go in 2004.

As trust, transparency and the proliferation of knowledge continue to be themes of great importance to many leaders this year, it is interesting that the bravery of those who stepped forward and spoke were the themes of 2002, with The Whistleblowers of Enron, WorldCom and September 11 co-conspirators recognised. We – the laymen journalists and owners of the information age – were there in 2006 (it’s ironic to be blogging about it).

President Vladimir Putin was asked to speak about corruption, religion and the war in Iraq when he was selected in 2007, which goes some way to outline the myriad issues any one leader has on their mind.

In 2001 it was New York City mayor, Rudi Giuliani (hardly surprising given the events of September in that same year). We had ‘The American Soldier’ in 2003 and in 2005, the great faces of philanthropy – Bill Gates, Bono and Melinda Gates, were recognised for their effort ‘to end poverty, disease and indifference’.

It’s a star-studded roll call of 10 years, and one dominated by leaders from the northern hemisphere. They’re all relevant, of course, that’s just an observation.

Leadership comes in many forms, and so many leaders rarely make news headlines, hold a business card, or operate in an economy that would give rise to this kind of recognition. But we’d like to hear about them anyway.

So here’s a global question – who would you nominate as leader of the decade? Tell us in the comments section below.

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Posted by: Common Purpose | 1 December 2009

Lead with fresh eyes

How we perceive the world depends very much on who tells its story.  Indeed, you could even argue that with a differing opinion.  There are prime examples of contradictory opinions everywhere, particularly as our access to information, news and knowledge becomes increasingly fragmented.

Today is World AIDS Day, an awareness raising event stimulating global media coverage and opinions ranging from critical to hopeful.

Rather than asking what your opinion is on World AIDS Day or AIDS as a global issue, this post instead questions where you’re getting details on the story and in what ways they’re influencing your opinions.

Where do you get your news? And how much does your information source and the channels you use to access information say about the assumptions and foundations upon which you base your leadership decisions?

Today’s leadership practice is about widening your peripheral vision and looking at an issue with a fresh perspective.  As Albert Einstein said:  “We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Try out the practice below, write a comment on this blog to share your reflections, thoughts and questions from your learning experience. You can also broaden your understanding by reading other people’s comments to see what they took from trying this practice.

Current Affairs

Choose a current news story you are interested in. Read about it from different media sources you wouldn’t normally refer to, for example an on-line journal or blog, an entertainment magazine, a different newspaper. Then:

  • Write down the differences you you noticed in how this media source presented the story
  • How did it affect, challenge, change or reinforce your point of view?

To lead you need to be able to take a different perspective, hear messages from different people and consider your judgement and actions as a result.

Understanding how current affairs can be seen from so many different angles, and how people have varying opinions on one issue, helps us see where our own bias lies.  This is the first step to learning to suspend judgement and become more curious, tolerant and understanding of others.

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Posted by: Common Purpose | 24 November 2009

A staple of the leadership diet – Practice! Practice! Practice!

Last week hundreds of cities around the globe played host to Global Entrepreneurship Week events in an effort to inspire enterprising activity worldwide.  It was a fantastic opportunity to make connections, share knowledge, get inspiration and develop the skills to turn your passion into action.  The Common Purpose 360 day is similarly an annual occasion where people are encouraged to take time out to challenge the way they see the world, make new connections and consider their own leadership and its effects.

While these annual celebrations and events do a great deal to support the development of citizenship and enterprising activities, it’s important to remember that inspiration doesn’t always last and leadership can’t be learned or mastered in one go.  These things come from reflection upon everyday occurrences, challenging yourself to try something new, seeking out the opinions and expertise of others and continually being open to learning.  Leadership, like anything else, requires daily practice.

In an effort to support everyday leadership development, we’ve developed a number of simple practices you can do each week to build skills, make connections, get inspired and continually nuture your abilities.  Every Tuesday we’ll post a practice for people to experiment with, comment on what the experience was like and share any Aha! moments or insights that came from taking part in new activities or new ideas.

To kick off, we’re starting with a practice about taking the first steps.  Enjoy!  Experience!  Share

Taking Part

Go to a meeting or an event that you, and others who know you, would consider it unlikely for you to attend. Write down your responses to these questions before, during and after the meeting:

  • How did it feel?
  • What did you notice about the meeting?
  • What did you notice about yourself?

Leadership requires people to work in unfamiliar situations, with new and different people, departments and organisations. When you are comfortable with your role and working environment it’s difficult to step into the unfamiliar.  By regularly identifying and stepping into new and unfamiliar situations you will learn how to cope with your own reactions, emotions and be able to adapt faster in the future.

“Surely one of the most visible lessons taught by the twentieth century has been the existence, not so much of a number of different realities, but of a number of different lenses with which to see the same reality.” – Michael Arlen

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