Talent Magnet has been an idea waiting to come to life since 1999 when we (Kate Billing and Paul Leacock) first discussed the concept of going into business together and starting a recruitment business with a different approach.

Late in 2011 was finally that time!  We are very pleased to introduce our business partner in Talent Magnet, Dale Clareburt, whom we have both known for years, including Paul and Dale working together in one of NZ’s largest recruitment companies in years past.  It is with a genuine and heart felt sense of excitement and a shared passion that we have set about creating  Talent Magnet, a company focused on supporting organisations to become magnets for the talent they need to create sustainable, authentic, high performance organisations.

Alignment with Blacksmith

At Blacksmith, we’ve been fortunate to work with some amazing people and businesses over the last three years and are proud of the part we have played in supporting positive shifts in their cultural evolution and organisational development.  With Talent Magnet, we’ve taken our experience and success in culture, people development and employer brand and combined it with a BIG helping of talent management and resourcing expertise, meaning we bring a unique perspective and offering to an otherwise pretty ‘vanilla’ market.

At some point along any organisation’s cultural journey, the focus inevitably turns from internal, thinking about the people we have, toward the external world and the all important talent the company needs to bring in over time to be sustainable and successful.  At that moment we are often asked the question:  “you’ve made such a positive difference to our culture, can you help us get the right people into our business too?”.  Well … YES!

A Different Approach

Blacksmith and Talent Magnet share a common purpose – to make the world a better [work]place.  This purpose, and our shared goal to postively impact the lives of 1,000,000 people by 2020 (no pressure!) are what get us out of bed in the morning and drive everything we do in business.  It has informed our thinking and the development of all our offerings.  This means that along with traditional services like Sourcing & Selection, you’ll find new to market offerings such as Integration and Transition, focusing on the all important “First 90 Days”, not just for new hires but also for your fabulous existing talent as they move up, around, out and back in to your business!

Our Team

As Talent Magnet has grown from an idea into reality, we have lived up to our name and drawn in some of the best available talent the market has to offer.  Our growing team currently has combined industry experience of 45 years and the great thing is we’re learning every day!

We’d love to stay connected so join our monthly Talent Magnet newsletter and we’ll keep you informed about what’s happening in our world and the global talent market in which we are all competing today. You can join our newsletter here.

If you’re interested in learning more about how your organisation can become a Talent Magnet, connect with us.  We welcome the opportunity to elevate the talent conversation in your organisation!

I am no self-proclaimed Social Media Guru or Digital Futurist so when John Lai of Social Media NZ asked me to put something together on ‘trends in social media in 2012’ I wondered where the hell to start!  My ‘sandbox’ is organizational culture, combined with a decent helping of purpose, happiness and mindfulness in business.  Taking that perspective, apart from the capability and confidence (or lack thereof) of people managers, and the ubiquitous influence of man-made (GFC) and natural disasters, the things that are most significantly changing our experience of work, culture and connection to others are social tools and digital communication.

The day to day work experience we share with our colleagues, boss, customers and suppliers has been changed forever by the wonderful world of social media, e-mail, mobile and the increasing number of social and cloud based business tools we employ to ‘get the job done’.  The 9-5 boundary is well and truly down and we have a never seen before ability to connect with information and people.  Based on the experience in our own business, and the reality of our clients and their people, it seems we’ve only just begun to experience the effects, both positive and negative, that these changes will have.

Email Crisis: If there’s one thing I hear in EVERY business we work with, it’s about the overwhelming and performance killing impact of e-mail.  Now that may not seem like a terribly sexy thing to be talking about in a social media piece but the reality is that it is still the most common form of digital communication in business and its becoming a real problem.  Despite the BHAG Atos have set for themselves to be internal e-mail free by 2014, I don’t see this changing in a hurry for NZ business.  It seems people are using e-mail unconsciously and not thinking about the effectiveness of it as a communication tool.  It has become a crutch, a substitute for face-to-face conversation and an arse covering mechanism.  To this are being added layers of complexity and confusion with the advent of inexpensive and easy to implement social tools like Yammer and Chatter which leave people wondering what tool to use with whom about what.

Intranet vs Social Business System: For eons, company intranets have been dull, static, and impossible to navigate stores of aging information.  Thankfully this is changing.  Whether its making more of what you’ve got but adding the ability to comment and create content without ‘the intranet God’ being involved, or moving to a full social business system (SBS) like Jive, companies are catching on to the fact that there is massive untapped knowledge, ideas and performance potential they can tap into.  By turning their ‘intranet’ into a place to connect people (including customers and suppliers in many instances) and create collaborative conversations they shift culture and lift business results.  For most NZ businesses I believe moving to full SBS is too greater a step from where they are right now but look forward to that change in years to come.

Social Media for Engagement: The potential of social media and on-line communities to power up employee engagement and internal advocacy seems to be beyond the comprehension of many NZ companies.  Most we come in contact with have locked down internet access, especially to things like Facebook, Linked In, Twitter and YouTube despite the fact the majority of their people have mobile phones and can access the wonders of the worldwide web anywhere and anytime they like! Although there’s been an upswing in the number of businesses with social media presence, responsibility for it sits with very few people and the target audience remains chiefly customers, with the possible addition of job seekers.  Very few businesses see the opportunity to engage their people in connecting directly and freely with those audiences or with each other via these platforms and continue to ‘single point broadcast’ rather than build engaged communities.  This is one of the easiest areas to create positive cultural impact, especially as the war for talent sparks up again, and I hope to see NZ business using these tools much more effectively in 2012.

What kind of impact are social business tools and digital communication having on your people and culture?

So why do we need to elevate the Talent Conversation?

The employment market is changing and the pace of that change will only accelerate over the next few years.  The smart organisations see the change coming, understand the impact it may have on their business sustainability and performance, and are designing and implementing strategies to minimize the potential negative impact and, importantly, leverage the new opportunities this presents them for competitive advantage in “the war for talent”.  If talented, skilled people are a source of competitive advantage for you business,  then finding, motivating and retaining them is only going to get more challenging if you don’t move from a transactional to transformational mindset.

From my observations and experiences, many New Zealand organisations view talent acquisition and management as a reactive, short-term, tactical problem to be solved rather than an integral part of a long term business strategy.  This is reflected in the Deloitte research ‘Talent Edge New Zealand – Getting the balance right’ with the top three most common sources of candidates being on-line advertising (primarily job boards), recruitment agencies and print media.  So nothing has really changed since I joined the recruitment industry 11 years ago and we’re stuck in a ‘recruitment advertising’ rather than ‘talent sourcing’ approach to resourcing our countries economic engine.

Given the drivers of the new “war for talent”, relying on fishing from the market of active jobseekers as your primarily sourcing avenue is going to become more and more risky and offer less certainty of getting the right person at the right time.  Numerous sources of research exist to suggest that for any given role, only about 10% of relevant/experienced potential talent is actively engaged in a job search at the moment in time you need them.  Organisations must elevate the Talent Conversation and start applying the same level of Board/Executive attention, strategic intent, resources and investment as they do to their customer acquisition and retention, consumer brand strategy, IT infrastructure, and financial management.

With job boards becoming increasingly crowded with ads that all look and sound the same, very little genuine sourcing or other innovation within the recruitment agency environment and print job ads dying a slow death – maintaining the status quo will not be a winning strategy in your “war for talent”.

What can you do to start elevating the Talent Conversation in your business?

• Get Smart – if you want to be taken seriously at the top table you need to know your stuff.  Become an expert on the national and global talent market.  Hunt out research, trends and case studies that demonstrate new thinking.  Be prepared to lead from the front and back yourself – innovator/early adopters MAKE the change rather than follow it so you may need to interpret evidence and create your own solution, rather than just copy what someone else has done.
• Understand Your Talent Needs – this is the starting point, you need to know what your future people needs look like so you can shape your plan to fill these needs and start to develop a profile and relationship with the people who matter most – both inside and outside your business
• Dollars & Sense – commercialize the conversation.  To get the attention of those that matter in changing organisational mindset about talent acquisition and management, especially recruitment and on-boarding, you have to ‘show them the money’.
• Target Your Employer Brand – invest in truly understanding your employment market reputation and internal brand so you can develop an integrated strategy and execution plan to align expectations with reality throughout the employment experience and clearly set yourself apart for the talent you want.
• Create Talent Tribes™ – hoping active candidates will apply for a job you have vacant and then trying to keep the ‘extras’ warm with job alerts for similar roles isn’t the way of the future.  Creating active engagement with a range of internal and external stakeholders to create Talent Tribes™ of people who will advocate for your brand and your business as a place to work and do business with.

We are very pleased to have a guest contribution to our blog from Mark Harrison.  Mark was Intranet Manager at Vodafone New Zealand before heading to the UK where he is now an Intranet Consultant.  Mark is part of our global network of people and organisations working to make the world a better (work) place.

Welcome to the 21^st century where mobile technology, 3D entertainment, mass transportation and digital communication are part of our everyday lives. But scratch the surface of many businesses and you’ll be surprised at which century organisational communication and technology is still lurking within.

Hopefully you’re familiar with your company’s external website, you may even have a business Facebook page or Twitter profile and you may also have a passing acquaintance with your internal business intranet.  Or perhaps you’re like the Executive group in the company that I’m currently working with and you don’t even know what an intranet is?

Web technology is the easy part of being in the 21^st centtury – websites and social business tools, both internal and external facing, can pretty much come out of a box if you who to talk to or know where to look.  The real conundrum lies with how well your organisation is working with communications, culture, business strategy and good old vision and values through these digital and social tools. It all sounds like big business corporate chatter but not so. Let me explain.

Three months ago I was hired to scope out a global intranet for a London-based global media company. With over thirteen thousand staff in more than 80 countries working under five brands, this company had no global intranet to connect their people. See, you are not alone.

The first task was to “get to know the business” which involved talking to stakeholders from the top to the bottom, every function, the five brands, locally and internationally. How are they sharing information? How do they communicate? What technology, systems or online structures are in place? How does the staff find each other, share their successes, discover their failures? Do they really even care?

Some simple questions and over 50 interviews later, the real reason why this successful organisation didn’t operate with a business intranet was down to this: instead of being a global village, they were operating as hundreds of villages around the world.

By simply doing their local business well their focus is on their own customers and their own team within their own brand. With no apparent need to connect and communicate with their counterparts around the world, no apparent desire or drive to share information and no interest in feeling like part of the parent brand, life centered around the client and local business.

Speaking to the stakeholders revealed that their intranets are in use – “I have 15 of them in my sights but they are local country, single brand, or regional based”.  That’s not counting the several hundred web sites that the IT teams are trying to identify.  It’s a case of intranets for the sake of it and an indication of where the management  – or lack of it – has created an IT headache. OK so 15 intranets are great but it’s not the global answer we’re looking for here, however I’ll cover intranet management another time.

What was also clear from my conversations with various stakeholders is that they unanimous in their support of a global intranet – it’s a no brainer. It’ll get everyone communicating, it’ll get people sharing information (collaborating), it’ll have a global staff finder (employee directory) it’ll promote the Brand. Well actually yes, it will “Help” do all of those things but only if the people, the stakeholders and the Executives are on board to drive this technology change into the business as one.

This lack of cohesive, aligned approach is a primary root cause of many organizations – big and small – failing to make their online environments, web sites, intranets, Wikis, social media (blogging, micro blogging, my sites etc) succeeds.  Without that top down/ bottom up investment in the cultural adoption of online technology, its business impact and success will dwindle and fail.

Executives and people in the wider organisation don’t need to understand the technology – that’s what the IT people do – but there does need to be a robust strategy, management, financial and people investment to develop and evolve the need for centralized communication, information, education and collaboration into your business.

If you’re an Executive with the mandate and the budget, then research it, commit to the investment in technology, train your people to use it, hire a specialist to manage it and promote it an essential business tool.

As I write this the Executive Team are still deliberating as to whether the global intranet project will go ahead – after three attempts by the business sponsor. In the same week, a proposed Digital Media business and networking week in France was approved by the business costing the same budget! The difference is that the Executives understand their business but don’t get online communication technology. Can you really succeed in one without the other?

Communication technology has entered our lives in so many ways that we are more attuned to it than we realize or perhaps really want to admit to.  The hours on the web after work are no different than the minutes on the Intranet at work. We are hungry information consumers, be it at home in front of the TV, emailing our friends and relatives or searching the web for that Christmas bargain.

Your business intranet and your website should be another source of good solid dependable information that helps you and all the people in your business do their jobs to drive business performance, culture and brand power. If it isn’t then its time you did something about it.  After all it’s the 21^st century.

The 12 Elements of the Conscious Connected Workplace

1. Purpose led with strong, authentic values

From governance to the front line, everyone understands the organisational purpose and is able to link their personal ‘reason for being’ to it.  Work is meaningful and Values aren’t just on the wall, the website or in the employee handbook, they are demonstrated in behaviours and decisions everyday.

2. Inspirational ‘Master as Servant’ leadership

No ‘command and control’ here!  Leaders and managers understand that it is by setting the course then asking ‘How can I help?’ that results are best achieved, offering encouragement, education, insight and the constant corrections required for success in any venture.

3. Sustainable – economic, environmental and social

Not limited to ‘green’ initiatives or solely the responsibility of the Sustainability Manager, sustainability is a philosophy that underpins everything about the way business is done through understanding of interdependent relationships and mutual responsibility – thinking of the business and its place in the various ‘systems’ of which it is a part.

4. Giving is a core part of business

Leaving conventional CSR in the dust and no longer the domain of marketeers trying to make the business look ‘less bad’, generosity (time, money, ideas, compassion, empathy, etc) is aligned with organisational goals, purpose and brand promise and understood for all of the multiple positive business performance opportunities and impacts it presents.

5. Multicultural, trans-generational world view

Rather than creating a cookie cutter, compliance driven organisational outlook on the world, there is an appreciation of the wide range of experience and perspectives present in the organisation along with a genuine commitment to understanding the ‘gap’ and communicating and connecting in a way that encourages contribution and leverages diversity.

6. Connected and transparent, using social business tools inside and out

Social media isn’t just about your business Facebook page, Linked In profile and 140 character Twitter posts.  There are many and varied social business tools (ON2net, Yammer, Jive, Chatter, etc) that connect people in new and exciting ways, surfacing experts and leaders at all levels, and encouraging never before experienced levels of collaboration and ideation – both inside the business and with vital connected contributors including customers, investors and suppliers.

7. SMART work practices – where, when, how and with whom you work

Living and working in The Cloud with smart devices and ubiquitous internet connection is creating opportunities to review classic hierarchical organisational structures, fixed job descriptions, team structures, physical work spaces and locations to create development stretch, engagement, efficiency and superior outcomes and experiences.

8. Collaborative and inclusive

Intra and inter business collaboration includes genuine partnerships with suppliers, investors and customers.  Communication is transformational rather than transactional; creating the opportunity for dialogue that shapes culture, generates ideas and cements engagement.

9. Physical workspace design that facilitates culture and delivers brand

Approaching interior architecture and design from a basis of brand and values provides the opportunity to add both unique personality and effective use of space and materials.  This improves the in-office experience and deliberately shapes behaviours that will drive desired culture and brand through the use of space and people’s experience of it.

10. Agility and continuous improvement are part of organisational DNA

Being agile and responsive, shaping change rather than being at the effect of it, people at all levels are empowered and given the opportunities, knowledge and tools to generate continuous improvement in their parts of the business.  The organisation becomes a self evolving performance system aligned to organisational objectives and facilitated by managers at all levels.

11. Being of service is everyone’s job

Customer Service is not a department, it’s everyone’s job.  That goes for service to colleagues, suppliers, potential hires … even perfect strangers!  There is a deep sense of pride and understanding that being of service is one of the ultimate opportunities to find meaning in work and life.

12.  Deep sense of personal responsibility and ownership by all people.

It’s always your turn.  Everyone understands that by being the one to take responsibility they are all always doing their best in any given situation, including the ones that don’t go well.  When there are failures, they take responsibility and learn.  Likewise, with successes, no matter how small, they offer encouragement and are comfortable being celebrated when it’s their turn. Everybody wins.

So, how does your organisation stack up?  Can you see how moving toward this model could increase engagement, retention and performance, along with your competitive position for talent and customers?  As you can imagine, it’s not a five minute job to create this kind of environment and neither do you have to strive for it all at once.  The opportunity is to look at these elements, feel for which ones will move you in the right direction from where you are right now and then get on with it.  As Einstein said “Awareness is 90% of the solution”.

• Organisation: OMD New Zealand Limited
• Person: Chris Riley
• Role: Managing Director
• Organisation size: 100 people
• Location: Auckland / Wellington
• Core Business: Communications & Media Agency

A bit of background

OMD had worked with Blacksmith as a leadership team in the past year so when our annual culture survey came around we talked to Kate and Paul about support with understanding the reality behind the results.  Whilst the overall results were pleasing, there were a few areas we wanted to drill down into further for clarity and to get some insights into the challenges and opportunities that they highlighted.

What was the challenge / opportunity?

Undertaking the Pulse Check gave us the opportunity to understand how “connected” our people are to critical aspects of the business such as our brand promise, values, vision and strategies.  The qualitative process illuminated our survey results with “real stories” that supported the findings in a simple form and enabled our leadership team to further validate and understand the OMD experience for our people and how it might differ from our expectation.

What did we do?

Blacksmith managed the complete process end to end, providing a structure and the “independence” to ensure we received an unfiltered view of what’s actually going on.  Running three focus groups with different layers of our organisation meant we achieved a good cross section of representation without having to impact the entire business and have them feel “over surveyed”

The rigor and discipline behind the process gave us insight into how the layers of our organisation think and certainly uncovered a few areas for us the focus on as a leadership team.

It certainly provided a lot more clarity about what’s going on and where to focus our energy and resources to drive higher levels of engagement and take identified obstacles out of the way of our people performing.

What were the results?

• Gained clarity of the challenges and opportunities in our organisation and our people
• It bought to life what we need to focus on and build into our (leadership) plan
• It unearthed some major issues we as a leadership team were not aware of.

“During the last 18 months, the OMD leadership team have undertaken a major step-change to our internal operations and the way we collaborate and engage with our staff.  Paul and Kate from Blacksmith have not only helped with this process; they have been completely instrumental in our delivery of this work. They’ve provided us insight, clarity and advice on our approach which has been of significant value to our business.”

Chris Riley, Managing Director, OMD New Zealand Limited

If you’d like to be kept informed about upcoming events along with news, views and information on culture, engagement and business performance – then sign up for our newsletter

About Blacksmith Sessions

Our Sessions are all about connecting people and ideas.  Rather than just getting ‘talked at’, we like to create opportunities for action oriented conversation, connection and collaboration – think of it as a mini-workshop.  Blacksmith Sessions are strictly limited to 20 guests and designed to create opportunities for networking without the ‘cringe factor’.  We focus on topical issues, presenting new information in a way that engages, empowers and excites you to go back into your business and have a different conversation.

Parking

Nice and easy in the Auckland City Car Park building right next to us.  Entry to the car park in on Mercury Lane, just opposite the Mercury Plaza.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.  It seems that a term that has sat dormant for the last few years, thanks to the impact of the GFC, is rearing its ugly head again.  It’s popped up in a number of business conversations I’ve had lately and in several business articles and pieces of research that have crossed my desk and mind. That term is none other than our old friend “the war for talent”.  Yes, ladies and gentleman – it seems that “the war for talent” is back and if the research I’ve been reading is correct – it looks like it’s here to stay and this time it means business.

A February 2011 research paper from Deloitte entitled ‘Talent Edge New Zealand – Getting the balance right’ says that a whopping 81% of respondents report at least moderate (people) shortages today that have some impact on business results, and 13% indicate these shortages are significant.  Our little friend received another mention with the latest ‘DDI Global Leadership Forecast 2011’ saying “The war for talent is back on with leaders realizing they will need to spend more time as talent managers.”

So what’s driving the “war for talent” that’s filtered up into our business conversations and literature over the last few months?  From my observations, the research indicates some of the same answers that were around when McKinsey & Company coined the term in 1997:

Increased pace of globalization and talent mobility

In their ‘Talent Watch First Quarter 2011 Report’ Bersin and Associates a global consulting firm say that globalization and expansion into new markets are now top of mind among business leaders. Thirty-six percent of respondents cite these as one of their top two priorities for the year.  And in a presentation given by PWC at a recent HRINZ session in Auckland – their research points to “an explosion of activity in emerging markets has contributed to a significant increase in the need for companies to move people and source talent from all around the world”.

Demographic change with New Zealand’s aging workforce

In reviewing Statistics New Zealand information on the net annual change in the New Zealand working age population from 1977 through to current day and forecasted out to 2050 the view is alarming.  From 2003 the net change in the New Zealand working age population (20-65 years) declines rapidly till 2025 when it is forecast to go into negative growth and remain there past 2050 where the research ends.  This combined with the fact that other bigger and richer economies such as Australia, Germany and China have similar working population trends means competition for talent is going to get much more intense.

Advancing technology and our changing relationship with work

The cloud is making it very easy to work anywhere, any time.  I can run my entire business from a web browser and if I had to from my iphone.   I no longer need to be in the same office, city or even country to get the job done.  Global recruitment guru, Kevin Wheeler, recently wrote a piece for ere.net entitled ‘The Changing Nature of Work, Employment and Recruiting’.  In his article, Kevin points to flexible working hours, multiple jobs and virtual work as some of the issues, paradoxes and changes shaping the future of our working lives.

Read Part Two Now!

Before we get into the detail of the session we wanted to share the results again as we think they speak for themselves:

Business results:

• 2.3% increase in Customer Retention over last year;
• 32% increase in New Business over last year; and
• 47% increase in Value of new business over last year.

Year on year increases in their JRA culture survey results:

• 9.8% increase in overall staff engagement;
• 9.7% increase in organisational alignment;
• 9.8% increase in innovation;
• 10.2% increase in collaboration;
• 10.8% improvement in communication; and
• 7.4% increase in internal advocacy.

Emilija gave an insightful, honest and upfront account of their journey including the challenges and success along the way.  It would be fair to say it was a “warts and all” conversation and there were questions a plenty from an engaged and interactive audience.

Jes Smith from ON-Brand Partners then stepped in to talk more about the program that AIA used to drive this transformation – TakeON! Jes went into the core concepts that underpin the success of TakeON! and why/how it works to help shape the conversations in AIA’s business to build positive momentum and tackle the burning issues that were holding the organisation back.

From there, true to Blacksmith ‘one conversation at a time’ form, the attendees broke into small groups to discuss the insights/’things we liked’ from the presentation, along with the challenges for their organisations in working with a program like TakeON!

We have summarized the key discussion points below:

Key insights and ‘things we liked’ from the presentation:

• Maintaining a positive focus – look for what’s working in your organisation and do more of that
• You need you leadership team, aligned, engaged and actively supporting the program
• Maintain the energy and enthusiasm
• As well as looking at what we could do more of, think about what we may stop doing
• Use success stories to engage your people and “make it real”
• Shape the conversations so that it’s not just another “talk fest”
• Identify what’s important to work on – “the big rocks”
• Empower front line staff – they know their part of the business best
• Advocates can be anywhere – don’t discount people based on YOUR perception
• Linking emotion to the process
• Bringing ‘dialogue’ into the organisational state of mind and ‘shaping conversations’
• Leaders of the business have to have the desire
• Creating a culture that is sustainable, self regulating and self selecting for the ‘new normal’
• Challenging the traditional notions of management/leadership and where the game changing ideas can come from
• Recognition that managers need development; and
• Stories, stories and more stories!

The challenge with bringing something like this into our organisations:

• Perception it’s just another “warm & fuzzy” people program (Editors note: Check out the results!)
• Overcoming the “what are HR going to do next” and shifting the mindset from a “HR initiative” the a Performance initiative”
• Maintaining momentum
• Recognition that managers need development – we think we are better than we are
• Getting people to believe we’re serious
• Logistics – geographically dispersed
• CEO engagement
• Desire of our leaders to make it happen
• Timing – when’s the best time to introduce something like this?
• Size – does this influence the level of penetration required during the initial establishment phase?

The great news for us (Blacksmith) as the New Zealand TakeON! Business Partner is that we have come up against all these challenges so are very happy to talk through how we can support with understanding each businesses specific challenges and working through them  – connect with Paul if you want to talk more

There was lots of dialogue, sharing of ideas and challenges, and the feedback was fantastic – needless to say we have definitely set the bar high in terms of future Blacksmith Sessions!

Special thanks to Emilija Nikolic from AIA and Jes Smith from ON-Brand Partners for their time, energy and passion.  Thanks also to Meg Luff for providing the hospitality support for the event – it made our life soooo much easier having you there to quietly take care of business.

About Blacksmith Sessions

Our Sessions are all about connecting people and ideas.  Rather than just getting ‘talked at’, we like to create opportunities for action oriented conversation, connection and collaboration – think of it as a mini-workshop.  Blacksmith Sessions are strictly limited to 20 guests and designed to create opportunities for networking without the ‘cringe factor’.  We focus on topical issues, presenting new information in a way that engages, empowers and excites you to go back into your business and have a different conversation.

It’s a part of human nature to have a desire to make a difference; to live a life of significance in some capacity or another. I believe that people who are acting as leaders carry this burden with a little more intensity than those who choose not to lead in their lives. We want to effect positive change and nearly everything we do is influenced by this deep desire.

The more influence we have, the more we strive to accomplish to be significant in our efforts. We gather teams, think up new and creative ways to reach out to others and a host of other methods we use to express and exercise our leadership. We love to see things changing for the better and should never stop seeking out these things as we continue in our journey.

Imagine a world of leaders who have done the hard yards privately with their own personal and private development. How much more effective will their leadership be when leading others? Imagine leaders with their egos in check. Imagine leaders who are more, or at least equally, focused on the success of their followers than their personal and career agendas.

This blog post is a call to action to the leaders out there. Let’s create a new standard of leadership by giving momentum to the Mirror Revolution. Let’s be a generation of leaders who wrestle with and develop the person on the other side of the mirror so we are well equipped to lead others more effectively. Let’s get our egos under control so we are free to support the success of others. Let’s know who we are, good and bad, and craft a strategy of improvement that doesn’t include self-berating thoughts and actions.

A revolution is made up of determined individuals who will settle for nothing less than positive change. Let’s get the Mirror Revolution started and make leadership something of honor and dignity in the eyes of humanity. Will you accept the challenge?