Leading through an Economic Downturn
– Learn from the Maasai
Our theme for this edition of our newsletter is increasingly the focus of the help that our clients are asking for and is line with the relentless barrage of news and opinions we are seeing in the media. As the economic climate tightens so do the purse-strings and businesses are keen to get real value for everything they spend.
Why then did people spend good money to meet a group of Maasai elders who we sponsored for 2 days of meetings in the UK?
Learning Agility is the answer. Research has shown that the most successful executives have a strong pattern of learning from a wide variety of experiences. This is one of the key differentiators in the search for high potential talent and why we encourage our clients to experience a wide range of situations that can influence their ability to learn how to deal effectively with first-time situations or changing conditions.
The big question we posed was –
Do your Leaders have the experience to lead in times of "drought"?
Because the Maasai have learnt that times of plenty are usually followed by times of drought, they teach their leaders how to lead in such times and how to draw on the experience that has been learnt in the past.
At these two workshops, the participants were able to hear from and question the Maasai to explore their wisdom and then spend time considering their own current business situations before seeking specific "coaching" from the Maasai in order to deal with the problems that they face.
Read more detail on our website:Our News
One of our guests was Anna Wildman who is head of Global Leadership Development at KPMG:
"Thanks so much for inviting us to a truly excellent day, fascinating, colourful, sobering and energising all in one, just the most terrific opportunity, thank you for making it all possible".
We had considerable media interest for these events with coverage on TV and Radio, the internet and in the National Press. To find out more:
ITV News
The Telegraph
CityAM
Times Online
Leading through an Economic Downturn
– Sharing our Thoughts and Experience
One of the things we learned from the Maasai was that the Leader's role is to build direction and a sense of belonging and this cannot be achieved where trust is missing.
The good news is that that if you can build a high level of trust you are likely to outperform companies with a low trust rating by more than 150%.
Learning Agility is also one of the key factors we identify in our latest ThoughtPiece which is based on recent experiences with clients.
We recommend some key areas of human focus that will create trust and drive a Behaviour Strategy to complement your business strategy and we also include a very practical check-list of the things that Leader's need to do in turbulent times
Click here to download your copy of ThoughtPiece 8
If you want to beat the economic downturn and stay ahead of your competition contact us now for some practical strategies, and your free copy of the wall chart.
At Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire on 23rd July
At the Institute of Directors in Central London on 24th July
