This past month I’ve dedicated several hours each week to become more engaged on social media platforms.  For decades I’ve guided clients on how to engage with a broad spectrum of stakeholders.  Since Sept 2010, as Executive-in-Residence at IMD, I’ve taught participants in executive education programs comparable skills and written articles about it.  As I’ve always focused on the importance of connectedness and how to achieve it, I felt the need to spread my wings in this time of social networks and, as with all else of value, learning is in doing.  Just as I’ve “met” and now actively engage with interesting people since I’ve been on Twitter, I am discovering a whole new community on XeeMe and I am... more

The Saïd Business School at Oxford University hosted a dynamic Womensphere Summit, “Creating the Future .” 300 participants from around the world joined in dialogue during panel discussions headed by 30 distinguished speakers. I was particularly touched to receive the Inspiration Award recognizing what for me always has come natural: providing support and encouragement to other women and especially for younger women to step into their full authority as leaders. Through the day we discussed many dimensions of global opportunities for women’s leadership. Analisa Balares, CEO of Womensphere, said, “At Womensphere, we believe that by coming together, and by exchanging insight, success models and best practice cases, we can collectively create a much better future, advance women’s leadership in corporations... more

The best strategic plans and/or state-of-the-art technologies are only as good as the people who actually execute them. Long-established research shows that people yearn most powerfully for human connections. More recent scientific studies using mathematics show that an ability to cooperate is the secret of humanity’s success. So, when we help our leaders and teams know how to engage with a broad stakeholder spectrum we give them tools to reach their greatest potential. Neuroscience research supports that deep relationships with stakeholders are vital to success. Studies show that the combined levels of engagement of your employees and customers have an outsized effect on your performance. Thus, creating and sustaining SRE – multi-directional, emotionally deep, profoundly trusting relationships that unleash people’s... more

On June 24 I gave the closing remarks at the UN Global Learning Managers Forum (LMF) in Turin, Italy on the social responsibility of learning, training and staff development in global organizations.  It was an absolutely stellar learning platform: the calibre of content and structure was at the very highest standards to allow for a truly great knowledge exchange among 39 Learning Managers from 35 UN Agencies globally. Before I facilitated a discussion on how they each might best engage their respective internal and external stakeholders, I observed as they shared with each other in various modules on a broad spectrum of important topics.  They are at the cutting edge of utilizing new technologies to reach staff throughout the  world. While the politics... more

Listening to international musicians improvize at the Cully Jazz Festival  I thought about the “beautiful music” made through the interactions of 28 senior executives from 19 countries representing 15 industries during the IMD program Advanced Strategic Management.  Each ASM participant entered the program determined to design the best solution to a concrete business challenge they faced.  They left not only as individuals each with his or her own finely honed action plan, but also as a team of  executives who indeed made beautiful music together through helping each other.   And, as I led my session first at ASM and then for the full IMD community on the importance of Highly Relational Engagement of Stakeholders – internal and external – for creating long-term value, I also experienced how through our engaged dialogue we too created unique and beautiful music since it is... more

In my first week as Executive-in-Residence at IMD I observed and commented on executive education programs.  One was led by Dan Denison whose focus includes organizational culture, leadership and the impact they have on performance and effectiveness, and Tom Malnight whose focus includes global strategy, evolutionary organizational change, internal growth and renewal.  They guided participating executives through exercises designed to help them effectively tackle a changing and uncertain future.  Another group of executives interacted with James Henderson  whose focus includes helping companies achieve and sustain their competitive advantage, through a comparable exercise in developing strategies under times of uncertainty.  And in my first gathering of faculty and senior staff with IMD president Dominique Turpin we as an internal team explored many of... more

I gave the closing remarks, My Leadership Journey, at an IMD program Strategies for Leadership (SL) led by Professor Ginka Toegel.  31 women executives from 20 countries participated in SL over four days during which I was a coach.  SL focused on authentic leadership and how executives must learn to balance their own unique personality qualities with certain attributes critical to be perceived as a strong leader.  Since Toegel started the program focused on natural preferences versus a fuller range of possible behaviors, with special emphasis on self-awareness of one’s innate strengths and weaknesses, I chose to delve into the latter.  I shared how knowing yourself fully – standing confidently in the power of glorious capacities while simultaneously not being... more

I was a speaker for the first class of the Women’s Media Center (WMC) 2010 Progressive Women’s Voices training, one of many WMC initiatives to advance its goal of Making Women Visible and Powerful in The Media.  I emphasized how much we not only must advocate for our own authority as women leaders but that we also have a responsibility to help promote other women to break down barriers that still exist for them to reach the top rungs of leadership.  In two weeks when I will be a coach for 30 women corporate executives from around the world at an IMD Strategic Leadership module, my message will be similar.  WMC had selected 10 women out of almost 200 applicants... more

As a member of the Executive Director’s Leadership Council for Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), what thrilled me the most about the Annual General Meeting (AGM) was the motivation, focus and determination of the multitude of young human rights activists.  OK, having members of Amnesty’s International Secretariat, Country Directors, Board Members and Nicolas Cage sing Happy Birthday to me was pretty cool too!  But, seriously, the myriad times I hear people bemoan, “Where are Gen X, Gen Y and the Millennials?”  I confidently say, “They were out in extraordinary numbers organizing brilliantly, building on the tools Amnesty has developed over its 50 year history and bringing an entirely new fresh twist to it with their energy, insight and technological know-how.”   While... more