Metro Manila (CNN Philippines, October 26) –– Globe Business offers a break in the routine of corporate life with its Leadership Innovation (Lead-In) forum, held at the Marriott Hotel on Tuesday.
Headlining the event this year is Doug Lipp, former head of the Disney University Training Team. Other speakers were Grab Philippines Country Head Brian Cu and Huawei South Pacific Regional Chief Information Officer Barry Lerner.
The forum, formerly called the Enterprise Innovation Forum (EIF) for the past seven years and in its first year as the Lead-In, gathers thought leaders and speakers to “instill the importance of going beyond business,” and “disrupting operations through leadership with purpose,” Globe Business said in a statement.
He said Globe’s culture allowed this environment. He also invoked a saying at Globe: “If you have to fail, then fail fast.”
“But experiment… Sometimes you have to celebrate failures. It is through failures that you come to success,” he added.
3. Simplify the complex by prioritizing.
Simplifying the complex through “crystal clear priorities” is the first tip among Lipp’s seven doors to unlocking bigness in business.
Echoing advice from a mentor, he likened different responsibilities as balls that were being juggled. The metaphor, he said, works in both the personal and professional setting.
“Which of those are rubber balls, and which of those are glass balls? If you drop a glass ball, it’s never gonna come back, and that’s what you value in your life or business,” said Lipp.
“What you consider to be glass and what I consider to be glass can be totally different, but it’s having that laser focus on… why we’re here, and are we allowing extraneous stuff and garbage to get in the way?”
4. Be honest.
Lipp said honesty Is a common and recurring roadblock to purpose-driven business.
“Sometimes giving honesty to a person is gonna result in tremendous blowback, and it takes energy and effort to do that. So a lot of people in business, instead of being honest with a subordinate, will just fire them or send them to a different part of the country… it’s easier than being honest,” said Lipp.
However, he said, “the option of honesty is the foundation for all of us.”
“Honesty is painful in some cases. If you really value your employees or you value a loved one, you will be honest,” he added.
Lipp said there are ways to go about speaking honestly with a colleague and tempering their reactions. This includes figuring out whether it is better to speak in a professional or more relaxed setting, whether it is better to make eye contact or otherwise, or figuring out who is the best person to speak to the colleague in question.
5. Strike a balance between dreamers and doers in the business.
Lipp said company leaders have to distinguish whether they are dreamers and doers, and they need to find an opposite or contrarian to balance the other out.
Dreamers come up with grand ideas, while doers bring those ideas to life and challenge those ideas. He cited brothers Walt and Roy Disney an example; while Walt was the visionary and artist, Roy ran the business managerially and checked whether Walt’s plans were feasible.
Most importantly, Lipp noted the necessity of having both dreamers and doers in the company succession plan, as part of creating a lasting company culture.
