We're proud to announce that we've been selected to deliver a number of Leadership Development programmes for Reliance Industries Limited.   From July onwards Karen, Will & Mark will be delivering programmes in India with First and Senior Level Leaders within the Energy and Petrochemicals divisions of India's most profitable company.  

About Reliance....
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is an Indian conglomerate holding company headquartered in Mumbai, Maharashtra, India. Reliance owns businesses across India engaged in energy, petrochemicals, textiles, natural resources, retail and telecommunications. Reliance is the most profitable company in India,  the second-largest publicly traded company in India by market capitalization and the second largest company in India as measured by revenue after the government-controlled Indian Oil Corporation.  The company is ranked 114th on the Fortune Global 500 list of the world's biggest corporations, as of 2014.  RIL contributes approximately 20% of India's total exports.
http://www.ril.com

Our colleagues at Ashfield Healthcare have published an excellent article challenging the value of competency based recruitment and selection.   Click here to download


Having recruited thousands of individuals into the Pharmaceutical Sector, Ashfield concur with the Harvard Business Review on 21st-Century Talent Spotting (June 2014) that the indicators of potential to look for are:

1. The right kind of motivation: a fierce commitment to excel in the pursuit of unselfish goals 
   
2. Curiosity: a penchant for seeking out new experiences, knowledge, candid feedback and an openness to learning and change
   
3. Insight: the ability to gather and make sense of information that suggests new possibilities 
   
4. Engagement: a knack for using emotion and logic to communicate a persuasive vision and connect with people 
   
5. Determination: the wherewithal to fight for difficult goals despite challenges and to bounce back from adversity. 
   

We agree with these findings which also reflect one of our Inspirational leaders (Sir Chay Blyth) philosophy of "selecting for character and training for competence" in round the world crews.

What's your experience of competence vs. character?

One of our sailing heroes is Rod Davis.  Rod won Gold and Silver medals for the USA and New Zealand in the 1984 and 1992 Olympic games respectively.  Since then he's been involved in several America's Cup campaigns for various syndicates and in 2005 was appointed Yachting New Zealand's Olympic Director.   

We found this great article by Rod in the June edition of Seahorse Magazine.   Rod shares his thoughts on Leadership and offers ten practical tips.

1. Clear thinking - Know where you want to get to and articulate it through every means, prioritising face to face interaction.
2. Loyalty - Loyalty is developed in the old fashioned way - you earn it.
3. A bit of a mongrel - Staying true to your convictions will help keep the spring in your step.
4. Concept vs. detail - Leaders can't afford to be philosophers, but micro managing is perhaps even more deadly.  
5. Leave the Jersey in a better place - Commit to making your company or campaign a better place tomorrow because of your efforts today.  
6. Make the decision - Tough calls don't get any easier with time.   Once the facts are in, get together with your people and make a call.  Then move on.
7. Everyone gets to take out the rubbish - Leaders are not above getting stuck in when it's all hands to the pumps.
8. Don't just say what, say why - Leaders don't just give orders, they take time to teach.
9. The seven C's of Leadership  - from his coaching work Rod uses this model which applies well to leading:  Calm, Communication, Compassion, Confidence, Composure, Certainty and Creativity.
10. Ownership - Make sure everyone sees the bigger picture with regards to their individual contributions.

We're really drawn to point 8,  in our experience the strongest leaders we meet are amongst other things great teachers and coaches. These attributes unlock self discovery, ownership, pride and ultimately build succession.   

Click here to download the full article...

Have a great week
Will

As part of our work with Energy giant BP we've been exploring and using the 70:20:10 formula for effective learning.  Here's a great clip we thought worth sharing  by Charles Jennings who's respected internationally as a leading thinker and implementer of this approach  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6WX11iqmg0

As a summary here are some of his key points:

1. Structured learning is inflexible and costly
   
2. Cost/ timeliness and speed of business change requires new modalities
   
3. We forget 50% of what we are told within 1hr!
   
4. Context is critical and learning should be delivered in the workflow through new channels, tools and techniques which underpin 70:20:10
   

We're using this formula with increasing success across a number of clients by utilising case studies,  virtual learning, action learning groups and integrated solutions developed through far closer partnerships with senior leaders, HR and L&D.  If you'd be interested in hearing how then please get in touch...