Sauvé Scholars Program for young leaders around the world

Applications are currently being accepted by the Sauvé Scholars Foundation for the 2011-2012 Sauvé Scholars Program.

The Sauvé Scholars Program invites young leaders across the globe to apply for the scholarships. These young leaders are those who want to change the world. The Scholars are chosen above all on the basis of criteria laid out by the Right Honourable Jeanne Sauvé: initiative, motivation, vision, imagination, demonstrated communication skills, awareness of international and domestic issues and a strong desire to effect change. Sauvé Scholars are young persons who are 30 years old or less.

During the scholarship period, the scholars are given an opportunity to spend their academic stay at the “internationally-renowned McGill University, in the heart of Montreal, where the student body of about 33,000 includes students from some 160 countries. Through a formal Memorandum of Understanding, Sauvé Scholars enjoy a unique status at McGill: they may audit courses at the undergraduate or post-graduate level (but not for credit) and may participate in the array of university activities and facilities for every taste and interest.

In addition, the Sauvé Scholars enjoy an enriching private program of seminars with eminent journalists, political figures and leaders in business, academia and the arts.

Each Scholar is expected to undertake a new project in his or her chosen field – for example, arts, advocacy, business, communications, government or research – or complete one that is underway. Scholars are also invited to participate in some form of social or civic engagement for the benefit of the Montreal community.”

Only individuals between the age group 23 and 30 years can apply. The deadline to submit applications is 1 November 2010. For more information, visit http://www.sauvescholars.org/

Dancing Linchpin Stewardesses

You can use a audio or video recording to substitute the robotic stewardess that mumbles all those flight instructions, they are cogs in the machine - easily replaceable. The airline is pretty replaceable also, you just want to get to another place as cheap as you can. And someone can always make it cheaper somehow.

But you can't substitute true humanity, you can't substitute the true smile of that dancing stewardess:



True human connection, gift, art... linchpins win

You can't microwave leaders, but companies are most certainly overcooking them

I read somewhere the phrase "you can't microwave leaders", the context was about companies' leadership development programs - a.k.a. a bunch of trainings and assignments to form company leaders. I agree, you can't microwave leaders, but I want to challenge that it takes "time" to build a leader.

It doesn't take "time" to build leaders. It takes "experience".

How so? Ok, here you go: how many times have you seen senior leaders, people who are in the company for 10, 20, 30 years, that cannot run a meeting? That doesn't know the basics about delegation? Team management? Coaching? I am not sure what you answered, but for sure I have seen more than it would be possible to believe it is by chance. So the only way I can see it is that it happens by design. Fear of change design. Risk aversion design. Control and command design. Lack of feedback design.

How come AIESEC can develop great leaders in 2-5 years and a company can't do it in 10? Is it
just me or there is something fundamentally wrong with that?

The answer is simple: experience. AIESEC has very little fear of failure (or has a lot of hope in individuals, who knows?) and there is a lot of room for trying and taking responsibility. Would you give the CEO role of a organization with 50.000 employees, present in 100 countries, founded in 1948 to someone with around 6 years experience in the organization (which also means 6 years of experience in any sort of job)? Well, AIESEC does, every single year. Yes, it changes it's CEO (and all the other thousands of leadership roles) annually. You learn, you move on - individuals and organization grow.

If you are in a company and you are in charge of the leadership development, all I ask you is to TRY to change this mindset. Don't think about leadership development as time bound, but experience bound. Experience takes time, of course, but time in itself doesn't build leaders. If you don't give your people the experience, they won't develop the skills.

Give people responsibility and freedom, they will surprise you positively around 80% of the time.

Linchpins see the world as they truly are

In terms of perception, there are 2 extremes of people: the ones who see the world as they truly are and the ones that are so attached to their world view, their reality, that they can’t see anything beyond that, so they fail to adapt to the needed changes around them. A linchpin need to have enough discernment to check reality (don’t confuse with “negativists” that think everything is impossible). Linchpins are indispensable, and discernment is indispensible. How so?

When I was in AIESEC Norway, in my first year, when I was VP Talent Management, no one in our term had enough discernment to understand the situation of the local business units and their volunteer workers. The result was that our super smart strategies were never really prepared to face the cruel reality of the real world. In theory they were great and they would be great in practice if we were dealing with a well oiled and functional organization. We were not. The result was pretty obvious: it failed over and over again, until we were almost bankrupt.

On my 2^nd year in AIESEC Norway, this time as president, I was fortunate enough to get a team that had a much better perception of how things really were. In the beginning we struggled again, but when we finally accepted reality, we made the most awesome changes in our own behavior. The result was also obvious: operational growth, getting out of the bankruptcy and building cash reserves, positive balance at the end of the year.

The music industry doesn’t have a linchpin strong enough to understand their business model is going down, so they try to protect their worldview by suing and saying that download is a crime. They are attached to their reality. How come any of the big music shots didn’t invent iTunes (today the biggest music retailer) or Spotify? They had everything: the resources, the industry knowledge, etc. But they were too attached to their reality and didn’t have any discernment to realize the business model was dead.

There are loads of examples of organizations that clearly need linchpins with discernment: Blockbuster didn’t move on to the online rental, now they are filing for bankruptcy; Nokia was the biggest mobile company, it saw the smart phones coming (even developed a touch screen mobile 3 years before the iPhone), but they were too attached to their current cash cow and didn’t see the world evolving, now they are lagging behind and the CEO was thrown out the window. GM lost its edge by losing touch of the reality in the market.

Another example that happened with me: a company was pitching to me an e-learning course. "Quite useful" was my first thought, since I had a deep interest for the subject. After trying it, I couldn't stand the e-learning course for 2 full minutes. I could not skip to the parts I was interested. Only when the narrator would stop speaking, I could pass to the next screen. So if you were not interested in that part or simply wanted to check something else, no, no, you had to wait. I told this feedback (in a very polite way) to the vendor. The answer was more or less that they didn't see it as a problem, but would adapt to customer needs. I asked another colleague, she had the same problem with the not skipping and could not finish the course. He clearly was too much attachment to his own reality (to his own product) and that made it impossible for him to understand customer needs. I predict this will not go well.

Reality is perception, it’s always biased by our own world view, that’s why it is so hard to have discernment, to be a linchpin. That’s also why so many innovations come from people without experience in that industry (like Spotify, Voddler, Hulu, Google ads, Skype…). But failing to see reality means failure in the real world.

Empathic civilization

Great, great thoughts on how technology (in fact a more connected world because of technology) can expand the perception of who is close to you beyond family, tribe, neighborhood or nationality into a world where everyone is closer, thus more empathic. And this is no theory, it's already happened and this video shows at least one clear example:

Importance of checking up with your team regularly

Some people have the gift of sensing atmosphere, moods and spotting if something is slightly wrong/different with someone. This post is for all the others that like me can’t do that.

I remember when I was the big boss president, one of the key things I discovered is that there is no such thing as too much leading when you have a team. I am not talking about boosting your ego, talking all the time, giving all the answers or putting your feet down and only accept things your way. That’s really not the point and as a leader you should learn to lean in and out as necessary. It’s more about interacting with your team frequently and constantly – more importantly, in a proactive way.

There is a lot of “reactive” team management to be done, conflicts arise, plans change, budgets get cut, things go to hell  and all that, but I perceive that a key thing for an awesome leader is to proactively manage the team. It’s like a health check up: you can go frequently to the doctor, discover some stuff that can lead to some bad sickness in the future, treat it early and relax, OR ignore going to the doctor, run to the emergency room and take the consequences of a late diagnostic.

Leaders could (should) be proactive in talking with their teams and checking up if there is something that could be improved, how they are doing (work, personal, etc), frustrations, things that they like about working with you, feedback, etc. Of course employees could (should) be more proactively in seeking their managers, but if a managers gives the first step, usually it’s easier for everyone.

How to do it? Anyway you and the individual people in your team feel comfortable. When I was president, some people preferred to have a monthly talk in the café, others preferred a more structured 15m weekly meeting, another responded well for having a meal together… the important part is to make it constant enough that you are always on top of what is going on and not constant enough that it is annoying for the team member.

Sometimes people don’t even expect that you will solve the problem, they just want some empathy, just want to feel they are listened by the leader.

Linchpin – indispensable reading

Linchpin – Are You Indispensable? has book format, but in fact is a gift, a piece of art. It has been a long time that a book didn’t spark me so much. I started reading it around 10pm and I couldn’t sleep, even when I forced myself to bed at 1am. The thoughts, the ideas, the possibilities (within myself!) that the book unlocked is just comparable to a good kick out the nest that a mother eagle might give to its baby eagles.

Linchpin is a manifesto of greatness – not to get more money, not to get rewarded, not for any selfish other reason, but just because we can be amazing artists and give gifts that change the world into a better place.

A linchpin is an artist that gives away the gift of her art. But we are not talking about painters (not only at least – a painter can also be a factory worker, following the rules and the regulations, the exact opposite of linchpin).

Linchpins are doing their art everywhere and they are indispensable. It’s art when you call the customer service and that person treats you like a human being, it’s art when you don’t listen to the lizard brain and put that new idea in practice at work, it’s art when someone solves problems that no one even identified, it’s art when a designer shows us how amazing it can be to have something that is more than a phone. Linchpins are the people who are leaders, not managers, not employees, not factory workers – and, first of all, they lead themselves, so they can lead the world to great things. The best part is that anyone can become a linchpin. Some people might not want, but certainly can.

That’s my gift to you. I hope it sparks your curiosity enough for you to buy it, borrow it in the local library (or from me!), download it in iTunes or even – coff coff – go for an illegal way of getting it. Just don’t let the factory crush what you can be. Unleash your potential and become a linchpin – you will be happier as a side effect.