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are built intentionally – but how do you build one? It is the leaders in the business – their characters and their competences – that are the key, Mr Demjan showed. They
FIRST, LISTEN AND UNDERSTAND
‘Carrots and sticks don’t work’, Mr Demjan said: ‘I work with people, I don’t work with machines’. In fact, the workshop strongly showed just how important in both business and personal life the nature and quality of our communications is. Listening and understanding is the first requirement. Making oneself understood comes later. Real communication is about respect, mutual understanding, empathy, and courage. In fact, to build a sustainable great company or team, you need ‘1% mission and vision, and 99% alignment’.
Mr Demjan’s workshop went on to show how, since we are indeed personally responsible for our actions, it is possible to change our habits and behaviour to meet the paradigms of successful, proactive leadership. We need to bring basic human values into our lives again.
Making such personal adjustments of necessity must partner the massive change we see in the broader world around us. Change happens fast today. In this age of information and knowledge, ‘the old processes no longer work’. Mr Demjan demonstrated this aptly through a comparison of a rowing eight obeying the coxswain, and a team of white water rafters, where every member was of necessity a leader. This was the key message of the workshop, indeed: how to benefit from the
must forsake a position of dependence – reliance on other people, unwillingness to accept responsibility – to achieve a sense of independence and then move to an understanding of the importance of interdependence, which is the secret of a successful, synergistic team, and indeed of a successful business structure.
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FINAT YEARBOOK 2015 |