HAPPY NEW YEAR

I hope that it will be happy for you but surely we used to wish each other a Prosperous New Year too? Isn't it difficult to be positive with the persistent media focus on "bad news" stories? The real business Leadership Challenge for 2009 is going to involve getting a sense of perspective for your situation and then focusing on who takes responsibility to manage the necessary change. This is a theme that Chris takes up in his Blog and which provides the inspiration for the fourth part our "Survival Kit".

Chapter 3: "Developing a Sense of Ownership & Responsibility"
(Not a deliberate mistake there was in Introduction to set the scene!)

Do you remember the quick competition from last edition? We asked you to suggest a collective noun for a bunch of journalists. Here are some of the suggestions we received:

• A Bother (based on how they fret and try to make the rest of us follow suit)
• A Pint (based on their well know ability to consume) of course it would be a Litre if you are in Europe
• A Bias (self explanatory)
• A Humble (post modernist irony?)
• A Hype (I am sure there is a reason for this somewhere)

But the winner of our small prize comes from Norman Brett writing from his home in Scotland: A Blether which he describes as a Scottish word meaning to speak foolishly at length.

So that's ruined our chances of repeating the success we had in 2008 writing for a wide variety of journals which included:

• The Times and The Daily Telegraph
• Personnel Today and HR Zone and Training Zone
• The Director and Business Executive
• The HR Director and People Management
  Strategic HR Review
• Training Journal and Training and Coaching Today
• The Edge

To cap all this we have just been informed that members of the Editorial Advisory Board of Training and Management Development Methods have decided to make a "highly commended" award for our paper:

"PACER promotes one team, one vision at GM CEE".
There is one "outstanding" paper, and three highly-commended papers, each year.

ChangeMaker News:

• Andy has been running a series of workshops for new clients who have responded to our offer of a "free taster". This offer is still open.

Satisfied customers before Christmas

• David is off next week to the Middle East starting a Lominger profiling and assessment project for a major oil industry client.
• Lominger processes are also involved when we initiate a Global Operations team project next month as the pre-cursor to a world-wide senior leader development programme for a global drinks company.
• Chris has just returned from a world tour to Beijing, Tokyo and the USA to develop work with new clients and taking the next steps in building a key partner relationship to support our delivery in Asia.
• A FTSE 200 client based in the UK has asked us to work in partnership with Manchester Business School in designing a programme that we will deliver into Africa and Asia Pacific in 2009-10.
• Our DiscoveryLearning programme to Kenya in November was a great success; here are some delegate opinions:

"This is not just a leadership programme, but more of an insight into excellent organisational communication, engagement and effectiveness."

"It was so refreshing and challenging to learn so much in such a short period of time and a real privilege to be able to do so in this open, friendly environment."

"To consider....how environment, community and attitude impact leadership. We gained some wonderful insights, for example talking with the local school teacher, Jennifer, about the life of a woman playing a non traditional role in the community."

"This was a fabulous way to "massively shift" my focus and thinking about how business works and how people can engage with each other to create something successful, and also take care of their own."

Read their comments in full

From Global to Worldly Leadership Symposium 6 & 7 May 2009

The Centre for Applied Leadership Research (Leadership Trust Foundation) and Bristol Centre for Leadership and Organizational Ethics (Bristol Business School) have asked Chris to call on his experiences to contribute as a speaker at this first "Worldly Leadership" symposium.
More information on project and symposium

Parlez-vous francais?

Would your French or Belgian or Swiss operation benefit from facilitation in its own language? Do you have a multi lingual team where a combination of French and English would help their development? Or perhaps you would just like to take your senior team to a perfect location for strategic thinking? Only 1 hour from Geneva airport, we have developed partnerships to use our experience and facilitation techniques with local experts, to offer the ideal accommodation and surroundings and practical experiences to challenge your team to work together for success in an uncertain environment. See More?
www.changemakerweb.co.uk/international/

SWARM Theory

And last but not least for this issue I draw your attention to our latest ThoughtPiece. Inspired by a recent BBC natural world documentary one of our Associates, Mike Reddy, ponders the way animals survive danger by using an intelligent swarm and how we can learn from this in our businesses.
ThoughtPiece 11