Ten golden rules for the new world leaders

1. Be an opportunist, think not of your country but what you can do for yourself.
2. Be outrageous and say things you know are not true. The more unbelievable the better.
3. Don’t have a long-term strategy. If you really must, don’t tell anyone about it. Someone might accuse you of changing your mind.
4. Run a negative campaign. Badmouth your enemies because the more you call them names the more the names will stick.
5. Don’t listen to anyone, especially experts. Reject advice from people who might actually have something useful to say or who may have your interests at heart.
6. Take huge risks and gamble with other people’s futures. Cheer up! It may never happen.
7. Don’t even think about plan B or C or D…nobody else does.
8. Have no regard for history. What could you possibly learn from history?
9. Blame your failures on other people.
10. Get a terrible haircut. It stops people noticing you have more than one face.

Inspired by a conversation with a fellow #remainer

Making a website: The 'Deep Dive'

This is the second of two blogs about making a website to celebrate the launch of KellowLearning.com. The first blog is called ‘I made a website www.kellowlearning.com'

It took me more than six months to write the copy for my website KellowLearning.com. I don’t regret the time I spent because the act of writing about leadership and learning helped me to find out what I think. I also found out what I remember from the past two decades of working as a trainer, what I have learned, what I have achieved, what I care about most deeply, and what gives me joy. Writing about what I do, day after day, was a ‘deep dive’ into who I am, and what I do. And the benefit of the ‘deep dive’ is that I was able to make a far better website than I could ever have imagined. And, what’s more, I now know what to say when people ask me ‘what do you do?’.

Here is what I discovered, and how it has helped me to communicate what I do.

I wrote to find out what I think. How do I define leadership? What are the game-defining factors affecting sustainability leaders today?

The Benefit: Clients need to know that I know what I am talking about.

I wrote to find out what I do. What is my approach to learning and change, and what is special about what I do?

The Benefit: Clients need to know what I do, and why I am the right person to work with them / their organisation.

I wrote to find out what I remember. What do I still remember from two decades of delivering programme and projects? Why have some people and events stuck in my memory, and not others?

The Benefit: Identifying my most powerful learning experiences has helped me to connect with what I do well as a trainer, and to remind myself how I can re-create transformational learning experiences for others.

I wrote to find out what I have learned. What are my key learnings from designing and delivering training for different groups of people living and working in different contexts?

The Benefit: I can clearly describe my approach to training, facilitation and coaching, the principles I follow, and what informs the choices I make in the interest of helping people to have the best possible learning experience.

I wrote to find out what I have achieved. Recalling the people and the projects that I have worked on since the early 1990s, I became aware that the whole looks greater than the sum of the parts.

The Benefit: I am quietly proud of my achievements, and this gives me the confidence to be comfortable with risk and uncertainty. 

I wrote to find out what I care about most deeply. What are the most precious moments and experiences that I have shared with the people I have met, and why?

The Benefit: Telling stories about what I do, and why I do it, helps me to communicate what it is like to work with me.

I wrote to find out what makes me joyful How do I focus on what makes me healthy, happy, creative, and inspired? How can anyone working in a helping or enabling role if they do not look after themselves?

The Benefit: Paying attention to my physical and mental health helps me to be at my best when working with others.

Something very interesting happened at Moodle Camp

We built 10 new e-learning modules

Something very interesting happened at a recent gathering of LEAD Fellows and friends from all over the LEAD network. The event, which took place in London, was called ‘Moodle Camp’. Working in teams, we designed and built 10 new E-Learning modules covering a range of leadership and sustainable development competencies. These new modules will be tested on LEAD Fellows, and then launched in June 2012 at Rio+20. We achieved our goal.This was good.

Learning to take risks
On the 3rd day of the Moodle Camp, we shared the modules with an invited group of experienced leadership and sustainability practitioners from different organisations. I felt we were taking a risk. What if we failed to produce anything worth sharing? How might this affect our reputation as a learning organisation? But succeed we did. Our guests were curious, insightful and enthusiastic. They gave us much constructive feedback that we will incorporate into the beta version of the modules. 'It was good', they said, 'that we had involved them before the modules were finished.' Everyone went home tired and happy. Knowing when to take a risk is a leadership skill.

So what?
“So what?” you might say. E-Learning is not so new. LEAD has specialised in leadership and sustainable development for almost 20 years. If you put a group of LEAD Fellows in a room for 48 hours, and they succeed in creating some E-Learning modules on leadership and sustainable development, what is so interesting or surprising about that? 

What LEAD Fellows love to do

“I agree with you, it's not particularly surprising”, I would say. But that’s not the point. We’ve all seen LEAD Fellows in action at national, regional and international sessions. LEAD Fellows love to work in teams of people from different cultures and sectors. LEAD Fellows take a systems approach; they listen and ask questions, see and think differently, share knowledge, challenge constructively, take risks, explore and uncover innovative solutions. That’s normal for LEAD. 

What was really interesting was learning together
What was really interesting at Moodle Camp was not just that we succeeded in designing and building 10 new products against a very tight deadline. What was really interesting was that we were learning all the time about what makes an engaging E-Learning module. We were learning all the time from, and with each other.

How did we do that? You’ll have to read part 2 of this blog.

To learn more about LEAD go here www.lead.org