An Overwhelming Response

Anyone leading a company or nonprofit will tell you that life is a series of highs and lows. Things are rocking one minute with everyone saying yes. Then the next minute that light shining at the end of the tunnel is sold by a competitor.

The past five weeks of collecting nominations for the Emerging Leaders Summit has been a big high. The Summit is our first program beyond New Brunswick to Atlantic Canada and we’ve been overwhelmed with the response. We’re still finalizing numbers but the quality and diversity of leaders and entrepreneurs nominated can’t help but infuse us with confidence about the amazing leaders in our midst.

It also raises the bar for us as we finish the design of the Summit and Ideas Festival, making sure it’s a powerful experience. That’s nothing but a good thing.

The Leadership We Need

The New Brunswick news has been rightly focused on the death of Jack Irving. As one of K.C.’s three sons, his leadership in business and the community made an indelible and positive mark on the province and region. David Ganong told the Telegraph Journal that “he left a huge mark. He made enormous investments and created a huge number of jobs.”

David’s comment got me thinking -- what qualities do our leaders need to leave a huge mark? The impacts made by Mr. Irving no doubt qualify him for the “huge mark” title, but are there others?

I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Given our challenges like demographics, low entrepreneurship rates and education scores, or our incoming health care apocalypse, what kind of leadership do we need to solve them and how can we (as a society and as an organization) encourage this?

These were the questions swimming in my mind while reading “Measures of Leadership,” from the current issue of strategy + business. The study looked at leaders in the Gulf Cooperation Council (defined by Wikipedia as a political and economic organization involving the six Arab states of the Persian Gulf with many economic and social objectives) and what leadership qualities were helping them modernize and develop their region.

Those qualities are:

• Farsighted vision: A long-term outlook that recognizes the importance of building sustainable institutions for future generations.

• Pragmatic openness: A willingness to seek ideas from around the world and customize them for the GCC’s unique circumstances.

• Conscious presence: A recognition of the fact that the GCC’s leaders are not just building their own organizations but also acting in concert to establish the region as a global player.

If we change GCC to Atlantic Canada, how do we fare? I don’t know. Clearly our titans of industry are thinking about these, particularly Farsighted Vision, as they build companies into sustainable institutions. J.D. Irving’s becoming the biggest private sector consumer of IT in New Brunswick is a good example.

What about Conscious Presence? Have we been building the institutions and infrastructure to encourage action that can help our communities and organizations thrive globally over the long term? For sure we're trying, but only time will tell if we succeeded.

Nancy Mathis

One of 21inc's partners interviews another in the Telegraph Journal this morning. Dave Veale, CEO of Vision Coaching, has a series interviewing key leaders in the community and he subjects Nancy Mathis, Executive Director of the Wallace McCain Institute, to his questioning. It's a really good piece. Nancy is an inspiration.

"Everything that happens to us informs our future - good and bad. You probably learn more if things don't go the way they're supposed to go, according to your design. You learn more and that makes you stronger and smarter for the next thing you plan to do, as long as you keep moving forward."

Thinking and Doing in Realtime

I spoke today with Kanika Gupta, founder of Nukoko, who is completing a masters degree at UVic on the challenges young people face starting social enterprises. The research will inform a guidebook she's creating for young people interested in getting into this line of business.

After our conversation she asked what advice I would give after the experiences with 21inc. This is always an uncomfortable question. We learn so much everyday, who are we to give advice? I asked if anything from our conversation struck her as unique and could be beneficial for others to learn from.

She spoke about how much thinking we have done and continue to do on the vision and structure of 21inc, and the positive change that resulted. That was interesting to hear and probably because we’ve got a bunch of over educated people in leadership positions.

But also because we never looked at our evaluations, our governance decisions, event brain-dumps and debriefs, advisory network, and the 18 months from 2006 to 2007 exploring what 21inc should do as anything except what needed to be done. Thinking and doing at the same time is not optional.

Have we always made the right decision as a result of that thinking? Definitely not. Do we always ask ourselves the right questions? No again. So what have we received from this thought work (aside from several headaches)? Intentionality in our actions, a larger network of friends, an understanding of our market, more targeted programming to achieve desired outcomes, and commitment to given directions. And an understanding from experience that improvement is never over.

I’m looking forward to reading the results and how they fit into the bigger picture.

Power

We hosted a conversation this morning with respected and experienced leadership development experts. We were discussing pieces of the Emerging Leaders Summit when one asked, “how are you looking at the issue of power?”

Power is fundamental to leadership. And our research into leadership programs shows that it’s rarely made explicit to understand how we use it.

Paul Theriault, VP Human Resources at NB Power was there and started talking about the old TV show Dallas. During one classic scene, Jock Ewing, the head of the Ewing Oil company, loses it with his upstanding and ethical son Bobby when he tells him “you are never given power, you take power.”

There's a bit of time still open for a challenging conversation and we discussed what an exploration into power might look like at the Summit. For example, invite someone to join us who has had a rich life taking power and, importantly, having it taken away. Or maybe tools are developed to better understand how we exploit it -- or not.