20 years ago, on a midweek evening, I was feeling excited and a bit anxious. The top 100 leaders of a global insurance company had taken their seats in a conference room in the City of London. After a drinks reception they were waiting to be entertained. I had invited them there. I needed it to be a success and I wasn’t 100% certain it would be.

I had recently joined the company as Chief Learning Officer, with a mission, to raise the standards of leadership.  I organised a quarterly forum for our top 100 leaders, inviting executives  from other sectors to speak. A lot would depend on whether our leaders would relate to them.

Our second speaker was an accomplished senior executive from a major International Airline. The first was the CEO of Community Links,  a charity based in the East End of London. Although highly respected in his field, I wasn’t sure how well he would be received.

He began to speak.

Was he telepathic? He began by saying that they may be wondering, why he was there.

Then he described his organisation’s purpose:

Helping provide a ladder out of poverty

They generated change, tackled causes not symptoms, found solutions not palliatives. He suggested that, by changing a few words of this statement, it could be applicable to our business.  Indeed, his purpose adorned the offices of several large pharma, technology and financial services companies that his organisation worked with.

The room went quiet. The audience attentive and engaged enthusiastically with him in a Q&A session that followed.

I sighed with relief.

Then I realised that I needed to challenge my assumptions more, to be more curious.

After this event, my colleagues wanted to learn more about leadership. We organised a range of development activities which made a big impact. We got better at attracting, developing and retaining talented people and achieved higher levels of performance.

Launching a new business

This success inspired me to write a book about learning, "Discovery", published in 2005. Through interviews with successful business people about their hobbies and interests outside of work, the book explored . how we can discover valuable leadership lessons in unexpected places.

Then I launched a new business to inspire leaders to transfer learnings from all aspects of their lives into exceptional business results.

But my offering wasn't generating the enthusiasm I'd expected. I didn't know how to create compelling learning experiences on the back of a book.

 It wasn’t meant to be like this! What had gone wrong? I had fallen into a trap.

Getting carried away with my passion for discovering learnings for leaders from unexpected places .

But failing to be curious. Not asking the question.

What would really engage these leaders in their own learning?

Resetting

Our children were young. I had financial responsibilities.

I paused on running “Discovery" workshops” and went back to what I knew I could do well. That was Executive Coaching and Consulting.

For over 15 years now,  I've coached executives and teams across a wide range of industries and geographies.

Our focus had been developing leadership to achieve exceptional business results.

But developing curiosity wasn't a central theme.

Rediscovering Purpose

Things happened in my life that caused me to revisit my priorities. Losing close family members and friends made me question the way I worked and got me thinking about my original purpose in writing the book.

To inspire leaders to fulfil their potential at work and in everything they do in their lives.

Then the pandemic hit. There was so much that we could no longer take for granted. Not least our own health and the health of those around us.

Then all the other important questions about global supply chains, the role of government, our places of work; maintaining a sense of belonging and wellbeing whilst working remotely. Add to that the plethora of business challenges thrown up by the disruption.

Working with leaders through the pandemic, it became clear how so much more was expected of you.

And it wasn’t just at work.

In your personal lives so much had also changed, for yourselves, your partners and families.

My original purpose became more relevant to leaders than ever…and I have updated it in the light of recent experience

To coach business leaders to be curious and inspire their teams to create organisations where people thrive and deliver value for all their stakeholder

Why curious ?

New situations, new challenges and opportunities are emerging that no one has faced before. 

Your colleagues looking to you for direction. But often there are no obvious pathways to success.

So I coach you to be more curious, to stand in different places, look through new lenses and gain new insights.

When my book was published , I made some mistakes. I assumed that I needed to  produce a formula or set of tools that would enable you to be curious and transform how you lead.

I was wrong.

You could say that I wasn’t really curious enough about how to nurture curiosity in leaders.

During the pandemic I realised that transformation is about shifting our attitude to leading. It’s also about being humble, acknowledging when you don’t have all the answers. Then seeking to understand how you can best provide the leadership your colleagues need to thrive and succeed.

That's what I invite you to do now, to discover the value of curiosity in your leadership. 

If reading this has challenged or inspired you to or you want to explore this some more arrange a conversation with me.

27 July 2022