Despite this, my week has been one of connections: meeting new people, having new experiences, consolidating my views and passions, learning some new things, being inspired and as a consequence challenging where I am at, where my career is heading and our priorities as a family. While lots happened this week there, were two main events that stood out.
On Tuesday I attended the Simon Sinek workshop in Sydney run by Business Chicks. I joined Business Chicks fairly recently as they run interesting events and networking opportunities. When I first moved to Sydney, over 10 years ago, I attended as many free networking opportunities as I could to try and meet new people and build my contacts in what seemed an overwhelmingly big city. Not a good strategy. The only thing I achieved was eating bad food and being a captive audience for marketing opportunities conducted at 7.30am. After a couple of years of this I decided no more free breakfast networking events. As with many things in life, you get what you pay for!
A couple of other awesome 'business chicks' I know also had joined so I thought I would give it a go too. So far I have been to two events and I can say they are well organised, professional and awesome. The food has been great and I haven't been 'marketed' to. I even got out of bed to see Danni Minogue over breakfast (my first Business Chicks event). Anyway, back to Simon.
I had seen Simon's video on TED and knew he was going to talk about leadership. It was a inspiring workshop and I'm glad I went. He had some great things to say that relate to personal and career development, as well a leadership and business. He comes across as authentic and passionate and is a great storyteller. The key takeaway for me was that organisations need to understand why they exist, and it's not to just make money (most of the time that's a given). What is their purpose and why do they exist? A goal to make an unrealistic amount of money by a particular date is not something that employees or customers can connect to.
The same can be said for individuals and leaders. What is our purpose? What do we exist to do? This is really important when you are thinking about your career. The best most inspiration leaders I know are very clear about the "why" they do what they do, not what. A discussion with one of my favourite Managing Directors this week revealed that while she obviously wants the business she leads to do well, grow and be profitable, her purpose and passion is looking after the people who work in her organisation and providing a great place to do that. When you meet her she is very authentic about this. It is evident in the way she communicates, the way she leads her business, and the way she lives her life. As a consequence people want to work for her. A true leader has followers.
Yesterday I was invited to a networking event with the HR Leadership Forum. This is the second time I have attended as a guest and they, like Business Chicks, provide interesting speakers and solid networking opportunities. They also hold their events in really nice places at lunch time. Yesterday was a function centre on Sydney Harbour and on a sunny, sparkly Autumn Sydney day like it was yesterday you couldn't help feeling positive about the world.
The first speaker was Dennis Shanahan, political editor of The Australian. He talked about the current state of Australian politics and the recently released labour government budget. Dennis obviously lives and breathes politics and his intimate understanding of all things related was inspirational. Passion is a very attractive trait. Unfortunately I just can't get excited about politics so I was hanging out for Peter Murray (Director of Operations) and Peta Jurd (Group General Manager) from Veolia. Veolia had been featured in the Australian series of Undercover Boss and were to speak about their experiences being involved in the production. Don't you love a "behind-the-scenes" story?
When you are sitting enjoying a lovely lunch with a nice glass of wine, with a nice view of the harbour you don't expect to have your perceptions changed about waste management companies, have a laugh, empathise, be inspired and then be in tears. All in the space of an hour. However it bought home to me again (and again and again) that organisations have great responsibilities in looking after the people who work there. Veolia benefited greatly from being part of Undercover Boss. They received lots of media attention, got amazing feedback from members of the public and their Senior Managers gained a lot more insight into their operations. The stars though, were the featured employees who demonstrated that when organisations are clear about their "why", employees will be attracted to work for them, be passionate about what they do for that company, and will go waaay outside their position description to help the organisation. It was clear that Veolia takes recycling and their environmental responsibility seriously and their employees are passionate about "why" Veolia exists.
The trick in our life and in our career is to work out our purpose and be true to that. As Simon Sinek says "When we have a clear destination the route is flexible."
Inspire me
"When you work really hard but don't know where you're going it's called stress. When there's a destination it's called passion." Simon Sinek
Develop me
Not sure how to work out your "why"? Check our Simon Sinek's website for tools and courses.Just for me
If you want to learn more about Veolia and Undercover boss you can watch the episode here
