Judgment Calls: People, Strategy, Crisis

Today’s post is brought to you by guest blogger Caroline Lim who attended UBD’s premier “Guru Session” which was a leadership seminar conducted by Dr Noel Tichy. Terima kasih banyak2 Dyg Caroline for being today’s guest blogger. Here are her thoughts… and pictures of course 🙂

CL says: Personally, it was an extremely informative session for me, a truckload of ideas and questions I’ve never considered.  A warm “Thank You” to AB for allowing me to do the honours of attending this seminar on his behalf.

As a continuation, UBD will be holding regular dialogue sessions in the near future to discuss and exchange ideas on various issues such as moving our nation beyond the reliance on oil and gas, as well as to explore the opportunities in developing our nation.

In line with UBD’s theme this year, “Celebrating the Past, Anticipating the Future” and in conjunction with UBDs’ 20th Convocation Festival, a one day seminar was conducted by Dr Noel Tichy entitled “Judgement Calls:  Developing Leaders to Compete in a Challenging Global Environment”.  The event which was held at the Empire Hotel & Country Club Theatre on Monday attracted a crowd of 210 participants in leadership positions from both the Government and private sectors.

The crucial role for a leader in any organization is in making good judgements which inevitable determines the success or failure of an organization.  Dr Noel Tichy identifies three domains:  people, strategy, and crisis which provide a platform in developing a judgement call.  On people’s judgement, the key lies in choosing the right people for your team and developing them.  Consequently, these are the people who will assist you in choosing the right strategy and decision in times of crisis.

Building on this, isn’t it obvious that essential to an organization is its “people”?  Thus, wouldn’t you say that the “recipe of success” is in striving to build up a future generation of leaders at all levels which in turn, ensures the continuity of leadership in an organization?

Full House

Networking during the breaks

Dr Noel Tichy shared his idea on “leading by being a great teacher”.  Gone are the academic days of relying on professionals or consultants who stand up on the podium to train future leaders.  Instead, they are being replaced by successful leaders themselves who are able to share their own experiences.

Anticipating the Future

Follow the footsteps of Roger Enrico, CEO of PepsiCo.  For the last five years of his career he personally conducted a leadership development programme.  He was the teacher. He took on the interactive role of developing 10 vice presidents at a time.  During the five day program, they were challenged with a change project.  Given a period of 90 days to implement the project, they returned for a three-day follow up to share their experiences. Roger Enrico ran the same program for the top several hundred executives at PepsiCo. The projects alone resulted in what he estimated to be $2 billion of new revenue growth.

Dr Tichy with UBD Vice Chancellor and another participant

“A teachable point of view” ~ another interesting concept introduced by Dr Noel Tichy.  As an example, take a look at a Master Chef.  How do I teach people to cook?  I’ll need to have ideas, values and ways to emotionally energize them (the essential elements). 

Kudos to UBD on the great choice of venue

No this is not a mobile phone ad 🙂

A few things to ponder:-

• Look in the mirror and ask yourself what type of leader you want to be

• What’s your teachable point of view?  Teach someone today.

• Are you aware of tomorrow’s environment?  Look at Microsoft.  They were born on one simple idea ~ to own THE operating system.  They weren’t prepared for tomorrow.  Google was.