Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Leadership in Turbulent times? No short cuts!!

Helping others find their voice!!

That mission statement perhaps sums up my takeaway from a day long seminar I attended last Thursday-when I had the opportunity to see Dr Stephen Covey live in Hyderabad!

I must confess I was disheartened at the end of the day (the reason why I delayed this post!) as I felt let down by the lack of energy in his lecture.

Or was it the fact that he was 77 years old-and was very measured-moving very slowly -and just filling in with 10-15 minutes of lecture in between the very slickly made video clips and the PowerPoint slides? And ironically, all those clips portrayed him as passionate and charged!!

Maybe it was to do that I was perhaps looking for 'quick fix' solutions, and here he was -sticking to the basics!! And what the heck, it was all what I knew..nothing new?

Possible that I was also looking for a better ROI- the seminar cost a bomb-certainly in the context of the present economic situation -where one is busy trying to outstretch the rupee spent. Could I have not bought all his books, audio and video CDs, and perused them at leisure?

As a marketing student-here was a brand that initially over promised. But as I reflected since- the sessions were indeed priceless! I first read Dr Covey over a decade ago, and had actually taken cognizance of quite a few of the seven habits! Tried imbibing some of them-and over the years, had even influenced my value system-and am sure my near and dear would need no reminder that I tom tom about:

-Advising a lot of youngsters regarding their choice of which career to pursue-`Find out what you like doing best and get someone to pay you for doing it.`

-the shift from the employers market to employees market ( paradigm shift from the industrial economy to the knowledge economy)

-the concept of the emotional bank account!

Yes, over the years, some of these works had helped me find my voice!! And that's one reason why my professional and personal lives are so intermingled and often seamlessly integrated!!

Looking back, it was the time I needed to 'sharpen the saw'!!

PS there is lot of material online. But here is a good extract from another person who attended the training-with a lot of reference links! Happy hunting!

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