Meeting on the campus of University College of Dublin, we had a great group of speakers come in and share their version of leadership trials and tribulations. We had a pretty decent mix of backgrounds between the speakers.
There were two that really resonated with me, the first was start-up entrepreneur and former CEO, Andrew Parish. he had some pretty good takeaways that I found interesting.
- Start-up tips:
- Know your business partner - When getting into business with someone really understand them as much as the business and make sure its the right fit.
- Know your own end game- Know ahead of time what you hope to achieve.
- Raise more money than you think you need when you can raise it and spend it like it was yours.
- The transition from an "A" to a "The" can be daunting - A Manager to The CEO.
- The right attitude is more important than a good educations
- "You have two ears and one mouth" use them in that ratio - I have heard this one before but its always helpful to be reminded the importance of active listening.
- And the final takeaway I had from Andrew was that it's critical to think about not what your message is that you are saying or communicating to your team that matters it's the way that message is heard.
The last bullet point from Andrew was one of the points I connected with in my own situation. All too often I will tell my team exactly what I think they need to hear but I cannot honestly say I have ever given much thought to what it would be like to be in their shoes hearing that same message.
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| Andrew Parish |
The second speaker that really resonated with me was Paul Byrne, the current CEO at Trintech. Being a local from Dublin, Paul has his hands full as he runs the business from both the Dublin office and in the States.
Paul had some great examples from his work at Trintech and while I still have some time before I get to a C-level position like his, it was good to know that even at the top of the company the hard parts about work doesn't usually involve real work at all. It's managing and leading your team through the ups, downs and unknowns that is challenging.
- Some hey takeaways Paul had were:
- Fail fast and learn from it.
- Ask questions
- Convince others to follow you, what will they do for you? 1 person with 4 dedicated and loyal direct reports get's 4 times more work done than the leader with no followers.
- Flip the org chart - the employees closest to the customers on the front line should be at the top.
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| Paul Byrne |
Our instructor Jan also had some time to speak to us today and combined with the insight from the other speakers we had a great discussion.
Some topics discussed that stuck with me
- Hear the unheard
- “To hear the unheard,” remarked Pan Ku, “is a necessary discipline to be a good ruler. For only when a ruler has learned to listen closely to the people’s hearts, hearing their feelings uncommunicated, pains unexpressed, and complaints not spoken of, can he hope to inspire confidence in his people, understand when something is wrong, and meet the true needs of his citizens. The demise of states comes when leaders listen only to superficial words and not penetrate deeply into the souls of the people to hear their true opinions, feelings and desires.”
- Questions are the most powerful tool anyone has in a leadership position
- Setting agendas, you have to own and manage your agenda
And the last one point (it was a question of course!) that I am really hoping to find some direction on is -
"What do you want to do?" Jan's common phrase in his book is "For who's good do you serve?" I'm still trying to wrap my own situation around these two key questions. Obviously the answers to these are moving targets but nevertheless they are still targets. Why then, is it so tough to know what they are...?-The Curious Bob
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