Last week, our Customer Success Manager, Brent Ross and I had the absolute pleasure of attending Transform Vancouver hosted by our friends at Thoughtexchange.

This conference brought together a group of business leaders, HR professionals and community practitioners who share an interest in finding better ways to enact change and transformation within their organization for higher levels of excellence while lifting up and enabling their people.

I have to say that the uniqueness of this conference was resounding. There was 100% participation and everyone’s voice was acknowledged. ALL the attendees were engaged, interacting and building alignment while discovering and digging deeper into the themes that mattered to the group, crowd-sourced in real-time on the Thoughtexchange platform. The velocity with which we were able to identify those questions that in turn, facilitated thoughtful dialogue and moved us all forward with learning and purpose, was really impressive. AND, IT WAS FUN.

I’d like to highlight what I learned about leadership, alignment, and critical questions that matter.

About Leadership

As I write this, I am looking at the beautifully designed Franklin Covey’s 4 Essential Roles of Leadership cards that Mike Suto, our facilitator gifted us during the pre-conference workshop.

The very first card indicates who a leader is and what a leader does.

Effective leaders choose to consistently live and model four essential roles:

• Inspire Trust: Be the credible leader others choose to follow—one with both character and competence.

• Create Vision: Clearly define where their team is going and how they are going to get there.

• Execute Strategy: Consistently achieve results with and through others using disciplined processes and foster alignment.

• Coach Potential: Unleash the ability of each person on your team to improve performance, solve problems, and grow their careers.

Out of these, the ability to coach potential is something Brent and I felt was a standout point. To have a healthy leadership pipeline, we need to build other leaders by coaching and providing feedback. Key skills for coaching are:

• Active listening - Are you listening to understand? You need to listen to fully understand the other party’s perspective. Learn from what the other person is saying. Put aside your own assumptions.

• Questioning - Are you asking insightful questions? Questions provoke real insight and lay the foundation for change

• Acknowledging - Are you assuming capability? Acknowledging means trusting that in another’s ability to solve a problem based on skill, talent and his or her unique experience.
  

  In fact, the success of engagement realized during the Thoughtexchange conference was based on not only the format but also the use of the Te platform to enable us to listen, question and acknowledge the ideas presented during the course of the session.
  
  By living these roles, leaders are able to drive the kind of engagement where people can say, “I’m a valued member of a winning team doing meaningful work in an environment of trust.”

About Trust

Indeed, a key theme we explored during the conference was “trust.” One of our small group exchanges centred around describing how we truly feel while working in an environment of trust. How do we approach our work in a relationship of trust versus that where there is mistrust. Immediately, I thought of the extreme trust relationship I have with my business partner and with one of our advisors. In both cases, there is no doubt that I am being supported and there is a high degree of investment in making sure our relationship is protected. It is because of the transparency afforded by the trust in these relationships that we are able to create a higher order of value.

Four years ago, I wrote a post about trust in people reflecting on our company values where I introduced the trust equation. Trust is a factor of credibility, reliability and intimacy. It is lessened by self-orientation (i.e. trustworthy people are concerned about others).

Trust remains fundamental in driving team performance and innovation.

At the conference, Dessalen Wood, Chief People Officer for Thoughtexchange, introduced a model for applying Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to leadership. Of note, this application of the hierarchy offers us insight into how we can make the shift from transactional to transformational leadership.

As we evolve our companies, in order to create high trust, we have to have in place the basic fundamentals. We need to remember to meet people at a level where they are in the context of their organization’s evolution. In leading our conversations, we can’t start at the top and expect to establish a firm vision and purpose without first earning the trust and putting other mechanisms in place. If your organization is struggling to create a sense of job security or employee health and safety (Safety and Security), it will be a challenge to have them experience purpose-driven employee fulfillment (Vision and Purpose).

Dess also shared the critical questions we should be working through at each level to achieve trust. We need enough of a foundational understanding at the lower levels before we can be prepared to tackle the next element. Being able to ask critical questions and understand from the organization is a key element for achieving alignment.

Safety and Security - What advice do you have for things we need to do to improve as a company?
Structure and Process - What challenges do we need to overcome as we implement this change/product/services?
People and Connection - What makes you feel most recognized and appreciated for the work you do?
Alignment - What do I need to know as a new leader that will help me support the team and the business?
Culture Transformation - What’s important in creating a culture of empowerment?
Vision and Mission - As we develop our vision for the future, what do you think are the major issues and trends we should consider?

About Love

One of the most heartfelt presentations was shared by Lorie Corcuera, Co-founder and CEO of Spark Creations. She shared a rather personal story and, in doing so, demonstrated that love is challenging and often puts us in a state of vulnerability.

Research shows that most workplace cultures are based on fear and she challenged us to instead to lead with love. She continued to state that to love is human. When we love we associate empathy, trust and connection. These are all the necessary ingredients to build relationships.

Here are some tips for showing love at work.

Listen intently without distraction or assumption.
Be genuine and there is no need to plan what to say.
Show empathy. Give the benefit of the doubt that a person’s intentions are for the best.
Ask how you can help. Show compassion and understanding
Forgive and work to reinforce trust.
Create a safe space and mindset. Be open to being vulnerable yourself. Be mindful.
Get to know your colleagues and understand what matters to them.

Lorie challenged us to all lead with love rather than fear.

This conference was extremely memorable and I believe that much of the learning came from the sharing of stories and experiences. Thank you to everyone for the exchange.

We will be attending the HR Technology Conference and Exposition next month. We hope to meet you there. We’ll be sharing our learnings and observations from that event shortly after.