Leadership Summit 2016: Melinda Gates

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Leadership Summit 2016: Melinda Gates

Monday, August 15, 2016

Melinda Gates, Co-Chair of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation shared her incredible story and journey of generosity.

She is a self described “Impatient Optimist” – Things are getting better, statistics bare that out but we can do better and we have the capacity to do better
“In business you have data all the time from your customers, in the non-profit world, it is amazing how many decisions are being made without real data!”
“One person can change the world and make a difference in another persons life”
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is the largest private foundation in the world with more than 1,400 employees
She met Bill at Microsoft but left the company because she felt that they couldn’t have a great family and both have hard-charging careers.
She has tried to give her kids a “normal” upbringing, she even uses her maiden name to enroll them in school.
Growing up going to Catholic schools taught her the value of service, silent retreats, and other spiritual disciplines. She still carries out these practices in her life today.
Bill and Melinda have used their intellectual horsepower to not just build a great business and wealth but also build an incredible Foundation and give back.
“All lives equally matter-no matter where they live in the world”
“The foundation is the embodiment of our values in the world” Their money follows their values.
“We need to live out our values in the world.”
“It’s in the humanity of the work where you connect with other people…”

Posted in Leadership

Leadership Summit 2016: Alan Mulally

Monday, August 15, 2016

Alan Mulally served as the President and Chief Executive Officer at Ford Motor Company from 2006 – 2014 shared his principles and practices for teams that work well together. He did a fantastic job of sharing his real-world leadership journey of transitioning from Boeing to Ford.

Principles and Practices of Working Together

People first
Everyone is included
Compelling vision, comprehensive strategy, and relentless implementation
Clear performance goals
One plan
Facts and data
Everyone know the plan, the status, and areas that need special attention
Propose a plan, positive, “find-a-way” attitude
Respect, listen, help, and appreciate each other
Emotional resilience – trust the process
Have fun – enjoy the journey and each other, but humor can never be at someone else’s expense

Walking into new problems at Ford upon leaving Boeing
- Regionalization had created low synergy levels in the organization
- Consumer tastes were changing and we were behind
- We were fast followers
- The economy was slowing down and fuel prices were going up
- They were losing money on every brand and every vehicle
- Was picked up in a Land Rover not a Ford to be taken to the head quarters from the airport
- None of the Ford Executives drove a Ford
Look at the data and it will tell you who’s hot and who’s not
Don’t look at the success you’ve had but the ground you still have to take to make the gap between vision and reality smaller
Deal with reality, build a plan to deal with it, and trust and help each other to improve it

Posted in Leadership

Leadership Summit 2016: Bill Hybels

Sunday, August 14, 2016

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter over the next couple of days.

If you’re unfamiliar with Leadership Summit, more than 300,000 leaders participated in this world-class experience designed to help people to grow in their leadership capacity and effectiveness. Global Leadership Summit is a two-day event telecast LIVE in HD from Willow’s campus near Chicago every August to hundreds of locations in North America. Throughout the fall, Summit events take place at an additional 675+ sites in 125 countries and 59 languages.

Willow Creek Community Church Founder and Senior Pastor Bill Hybels opened the Summit addressing The 4 Lenses of Leadership. The following are leadership quotes and lessons from this incredible session.

Everybody wins when a leader gets better
Armed with enough humility leaders can learn from anyone

The 4 lenses of leadership

#1 Passion Lens

What fills your passion bucket?
It’s the leaders job to fill their own passion bucket
Your team wants their soul to be stirred by passion of their leader
How full is your passion bucket?
Passion comes from the heights of a beautiful dream or the depths of something that has gone terribly wrong in the world
What matters most to people (more than generous compensation packages & healthy team cultures) is to work with and around a passion filled leader
A motivated worker will outperform an unmotivated worker by 40%
Passion is like protein for the team, it energizes them along the way
It’s not just presiding over something or pontificating
Leadership is simply taking people on a journey from “here” to “there”

#2 People Lens

Most people grew up in a fear based, performance oriented work culture
Most people have never experienced a high trust, high functioning team culture
It doesn’t matter where you start, you can build a healthy culture
An organization will only ever be as healthy as the top leader wants it to be
You can change the culture of your team if you want to
God treasures one thing in this vast cosmos above everything else…people
Transnational Noise: water-cooler conversation and chatter takes a toll on the moral of the entire organization
Talent Observation: our problem is we’re increasingly distant from people in the organization and have no exposure to them.

#3 Performance Lens

Leaders have to get stuff done and have to set the pace
Speed of the leader – speed of the team
Goal setting and performance measurements
Goalaholism will hurt the spirit of your team
To move forward it will take constant readjusting of your leadership goals
Thriving = taking ground
Health = holding ground
Under-performing = losing ground
Everyone wants to know how they’re doing
It is cruel and unusual punishment to employ someone and for them to not know how they’re doing
Do you drive your organization so hard that it has to misbehave or so loosely that it’s floundering?

#4 Legacy Lens

The legacy lens of ministry: what people remember about you once you’re gone
Are you proud of what you’re going to be remembered for?
Leadership is not fundamentally about time it’s about energy, what are you investing your energy in?
There aren’t do-overs but there are make-overs
Leadership can become a drug that other parts of your life have a hard time competing with
Legacy can be made different in a moment (positive or negative)
Leadership matters and it matters disproportionately

Posted in Leadership

Leadership Summit 2015: Jim Collins

Monday, August 10, 2015

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter over the next couple of days.

Jim Collins, a Summit favorite, delivered 7 Questions he learned to ask from West Point.

Bonus: you never stop being a “young leader”

1: What causes you to serve?

If you have a charismatic cause you do not need to be a charismatic leader,
Level 5 Leaders are ambitions and fully committed. They are serving, humble leaders.

2: Will you settle to for being a a good leader or will you grow to become a great leader?

Well managed organizations are the only obstacle of tyranny.
You don’t manage a network, you lead it.
We are moving from organizations well managed to networks well led.
True leadership only exists when people follow when they otherwise have the right to not follow.
- As a leader you must know what must be done
- It’s not about getting people to do what must be done but getting people to want to do what must be done
- It’s not a science it’s an art
Most great leaders don’t start as a great leader but they grow into a great leader.

3: How can you re-frame failure as growth in pursuit of a BHAG?

“I am not failing, I’m growing” and that is the point of the climb

4: How can you succeed by helping others succeed?

At West Point everybody is failing at something
You are never alone
- Service: to a cause or purpose that you are willing to sacrifice for
- Success: communal success built into the culture, we only succeed by helping each other
- Growth:

5: Have you found your personal hedgehog?

3 Circles:
- What you love doing
- What you are encoded/made for
- Your economic engine
What is more powerful, one computer 1,000 times more powerful than another computer or 1,000 computers in the hands of 1,000 creative people?
True creators stay in the game, even when you get a bad hand.
If you believe life comes down to a single hand you can lose really fast, but if you believe life is a series of hands you have a shot.
When you get decked, that’s when you need to stay in the game…you love to do it, you’re made to do it, you’re called to do it, so no matter what hand you get you stay in the game

6: Will you build your unit into a pocket of greatness?

Great CEO’s became great CEO’s by not focusing on their career but by focusing on building their unit into a pocket of greatness.
Be rigorous, not ruthless about your people decisions.
Instead of taking care of your career, take care of your people, and your people will take care of your career. Life is people.
When you’re suffering at the end of the race, you’re not running for yourself.

7: How will you change the lives of others?

The greatest leaders find a way to make a contribution and impact on other people’s lives
Life is people

Posted in Leadership

Leadership Summit 2015: Bill Hybels

Sunday, August 9, 2015

If you missed the Willow Creek Global Leadership Summit this year, no worries I’ve got you covered. I’ll be posting my notes and thoughts from each presenter over the next couple of days.

If you’re unfamiliar with Leadership Summit, more than a quarter million leaders participated in this world-class experience designed to help leaders lead better and embrace a grander vision – the reason God called you to lead. The event was broadcast live in HD from Willow’s campus near Chicago to more than 375 sites in North America and later around the world.

Willow Creek Community Church Founder and Senior Pastor Bill Hybels opened the Summit addressing The 5 Intangibles of Leadership. The following are leadership quotes and lessons from this incredible session.

Leadership is about moving people or an organization from here to there. From where it is to where it needs to go.
Leadership is not about protecting a position.
The highest value at the Leadership Summit is humility…
Armed with enough humility, leaders can learn from anyone

8 Basic functions of leadership

Casting Vision
Building Teams
Motivating & Inspiring
Solving Problems
Change Management
Establishing Core Values
Allocating Resources
Developing Emerging Leaders

5 Intangibles of Leadership

#1 Grit: Passion & Perseverance over the long haul…unrelenting long-term tenacity. Gritty people play hurt, expect progress to be difficult, but progress to be made. This is the key that unlocks the ability for less talented people to win. Those with more grit undoubtedly accomplish more in life than those who do not, regardless of talent.

Can grit be developed? Yes. But the archenemy of grit is ease. Grit development demands difficulty.
Overcoming physical challenges is one way to grow grit, and any area you develop grit in spills over to other areas of their lives.
Young leaders grow when volunteering for extra work assignments and then delivering and over delivering above expectations.
When Sr. Leaders push themselves hard teammates and followers notice and they begin to push themselves to the next level.
The whole organization gets grittier, and gritty organizations are unstoppable.

#2 Self Awareness: Who are you trying to impress? Without understanding the decisions and how they’re tethered to your past you destroy your future.

Under-performance is connected to leaders not being self aware.
Blind spots: stuff that leaders think they’re good at but everyone else knows that’s not true…they’re making a laughing stock of themselves.
Something someone believes they do well but everyone else on the team is aware of.
On average every leader has 3.4 blinds spots.
The danger is you really have no idea that they exist.
Everyone will win when you grow in self awareness.

#3 Resourcefulness: (learning agility), quick learners, tinkerers,

People with a high learning agility are promoted more than 20% more than others.
Resourceful people may not know the right answer but they stay at it until they figure it out.
Resourcefulness can be developed, but only by putting yourself in difficult situations and experimenting and trying to figure things out until you do.

#4 Self-Sacrificing Love: serve them, invest in them, pray for them by name, pull down the professional veil.

Vision & strategy are not at the core of leadership. It’s self-sacrificing love.
Love never fails.
Love is what melts teams into families instead of just work-groups.
We live in a day with narcissistic blood flowing through the veins of most leaders, trust in organizations is low, and at the root of it is a lack of love that must begin in the heart of the Sr. Leader.
Gallup measures what separates healthy organizations from toxic ones with one simple question: “Do workers feel personal concern coming from their managers?”
The quality of your “loving” sets the tone of the culture in your organization.

#5 Sense of Meaning:

Start with Why / Simon Sinek / What How Why
People want a “why” to come to work…a compelling reason to do what you do at your organization…what’s worth giving your life to?
What is your “white hot why?”

Posted in Leadership