The two words no CEO will say

Nice to be with you, Mick.

A former roommate of mine in college got in touch with me and I was in Kenya at the time. I'd spent probably another nine years living and working in Borneo, as you and I mentioned, and it in the country of Malaysia and Angola and Brazil and Italy and Kenya. And he said, Ernie, you are an anthropologist Just by luck, and an educator by education. And we have a real need in New York City for people who can understand the complexity, the cultural complexity, and the learning complexity. And I have a task as the head of the education program for the New York Urban Coalition to find somebody to work with me, help me figure out how we can help. the schools in New York City become more relevant to the students. Would you like to work with me on this job? And I said I'd love it. So I came back from Kenya to New York City and met up with Lynn is his name and a dear friend of mine. And spent ten wonderful years working inside New York City on change. Basically the remit was how can you help the fifty most dysfunctional schools turn around, become functional, become places of learning. So that was the the motivation that got me into New York City. And it was a wonderful ten years working in all five boroughs. And I understand you've been in New York City, so you know the diversity of that city. It's a wonderful city. And I happened to live in Manhattan but was doing a lot of work in all the other boroughs. And we had ten schools in each of the five boroughs and about twelve consultants working with me. So it wasn't just me, it was we were in the transformation business with the New York City school system.

You know, it was the New York City experience that got me thinking about what I'm doing today, which is in LIM, LIM, I call it LIM, Leadership in Motion. And we are in the business of transforming business, helping CEOs, leadership teams actually turn their business around. Just like we are working with principals. To help them as the leaders of the school share the leadership with the parents, the teachers, the kids, the community, the support staff. So it was no longer a he, which i in most cases it was a he leading, but there were she's. There were women who became principals, and there are women in business today. who are looking at their company and say, What can I do so that we can be more of a team working together to transform our company.

You know, I think y the the word learn to me is a very meaningful word. It's got a lot behind it. As a teacher, I am not in the teaching business, even though I might say I'm in the teaching business, I'm a teacher. But I'm actually and should be in the learning business, helping people learn, not teaching a curriculum, but helping make understand and learn. about sustainability, about mathematics, about geography, history, whatever the topic is. And I think we as leaders need to also be in the learning business to help first of all the people on their team, our team, the leadership team. What is our business anyway? What is our role? Well you've got a CFO. What is his role or her role? You've got a CHRO in charge of people development. So help us learn about our role and our responsibilities. And that to me is the primary role of a leader to help his or her team learn about the roles, the responsibilities, so that together they are supporting one another. They're not there by chance. They have each of them selected a role, but they I don't think yet realize the importance of how we can work together to make our role come to life so that we are no longer working in silos, but we are working as a team. And I think that's the primary role of a CEO, a business leader, male, female, whether they're in China, in India, in Borneo, Czech Republic, or the United States. We all need to do the same thing. We all need to help. Our team come together, work together, learn together so that we can transform our company. And I think that transformation takes learning to another stage, which is help us learn what transformation really is. What does it look like? How do we know? We know what a rabbit looks like, but how do we know when our company is transformed? And I think that learning is part of the work. of a CEO so that learning precedes earning. I think there's a preoccupation with earning and that happens naturally if you learn. When we learn.

Yes, let me let me just tell you, Mick, and for our audience who may under not have read and probably haven't read yet, The Five Disciplines, which is the book that I wrote a few years back on shared leadership. And the co author and I had a lot of many conversations like you and I are having. What is shared leadership? what are the disciplines for a leader to understand? And now you're asking me what is one of those disciplines and how do you bring that to life? So let me just tell you what the disciplines are and then answer your question. So there are five disciplines that we've identified. I'm sure there are more, but we've identified five that are critical to a leader's ability to really get his or her team to the point where they can transform a company. One is connect. Like you and I did. A few minutes before we started, you know, I didn't know who you were. You didn't know who I was. You I had read a little bit about you, you read a little bit about me, but we had to have a connection. You can't get a computer to work if you don't have a connection, if you don't plug it in. So, how do you get plugged in with your team? Critical. And I'm going to tell you a little bit more about that. The next one is contracting. You and I did a little contracting around How long are we going to talk? What are we going to talk about? So there's tons of contracting that goes on in Teams, and that is really saying let's align on expectations. Then there is collecting. How do you collect information? That's your job right now to collect from me, for your audience, bits of wisdom, insights, concepts that they can apply. wherever they are, in whatever business they're in. So collecting is a critical part of your work, my work, leaders' work. Fourth C is collaboration. So now that we know each other, we've agreed on where we're going, what our business is, what our vision is. How do we and we've started collecting ideas and questions on what we need to do. Now how do we actually work together? How do we collaborate? So you're sitting down in a meeting, and that's where most collaboration happens. What do you do in those meetings? And the last discipline is challenge. How do you constantly learn, challenge each other? Not the person, but the ideas. We don't want to hurt our team members, we want to help them. We want to offer ways that we can improve, that we can grow, that we can learn. And you and I talked a little bit about that just a few minutes ago. So all of these disciplines are important, but the most important I think is connection. Because if you don't connect and a lot of leaders haven't connected with their team, they're not going to make a big difference. If I could, let me tell you a quick story to illustrate that point. A number of years ago, I was invited by the then CHRO Chief Human Resource Officer. A guy that I had met in the United States, and he happened to be in Singapore. He had just joined a new team. And he was helping his new boss, who was coming from a pharmaceutical company, along with the head of marketing and the head of sales. So it almost felt like a reverse takeover. One company coming in to help another company. And the CEO who was coming in for that region. Asia Pacific, which included India and China both, and all the other countries in Asia Pacific, he was asked by the CEO of the company to come in and get a new strategy. And so what he wanted to do was on day one tell his team what the new strategy was. And the fellow who hired me said, Ernie, what do you think? And I said, Well, I think before he says anything about the new strategy, he's going to need to think who is on my team. Who are they anyway? As human beings, as well as the roles that they have. And they're going to be very curious about who I am, the new guy coming in from another company, bringing with me the head of sales and the head of marketing. So I said connecting is critical. If you're nothing on the agenda for credit for connecting, we need to put it on. And he had taken the responsibility for putting this agenda together and there was nothing there in terms of introductions. We were on the thirty-second floor of the best hotel, the Ritz-Carlton, at the time in Singapore. We had a fabulous view. We had a boardroom table. And I said, Robin, this isn't gonna work. I said, We haven't come here to look at Singapore. And a boardroom table is an obstacle that gets in our way. We can't get it out of here. We need a different place if we're going to connect. He said, Really? I said really. He said, Okay, let me ask the hotel. They didn't have any other room except in the basement. So we went from the boardroom to the basement in a room, no windows, and I said, perfect. We put some pictures up, we put a few plants in there, and we got chairs in a circle, so we could each see each other and hear each other. And you know, these are the little things that I think CEOs don't pay attention to. Not all of them, not all the time, is that their job, your job, my job, is communicating. And the best way to communicate and to connect and communicating is to be able to sit in a circle. So that's a long story for the one discipline, connect.

Well, you take me twenty six years back. What are you, twenty? So you weren't even th a thought from your parents in those days. But you know, it's very important to get that time perspective because you're absolutely right. AstraZeneca is still one of our major clients. And I think it's because of the connection, but also the contribution that we were able to make in a very critical part of their startup as a company. It was two companies, Astra from Sweden and Xeneca from the UK. And their biggest market was the USA, which is for many companies. So they said we need a staff to help the top six hundred, three hundred from Astra, three hundred from Zeneca come together and become one. So becoming one, and right now in China there is the Moon Festival, mid-autumn festival, and the moon cake is symbolic of becoming one, coming together. And in every company, whether it's an old company or a new company, coming together, coming from me, the CEO, to we, the leadership team, to a larger US, the organization. Is a critical part. And the head of learning and development invited me to come in and work with the staff, mostly from Xeneca and mostly from Astra, coaches from those two countries, to help their country, their company rather, come together and become one. And so one of the things we did was an exercise, and she said, Ernie, can you think of an exercise? An activity that we could do that would help the people from Astra and Xeneca, the top 600, really get connected. And of course, we weren't working all 600 together at the same time. We were working through a leadership development program of three years' time in cohorts of 20 people, 10 Astra, 10 Xeneca. But the question was. I need help. And I think that word help is a magic word that gets everybody in an organization thinking. What help do I need? If I'm going to be successful? And I think if you were to think of it, what help do I need? What help do I need? We all need help to do what we want to do. And that question alone helped people articulate to one another. I need help. And it's such a beautiful word. Most leaders in businesses don't have that on their agenda. They think they have gotten to the top of the tele the totem pole. So now they're you're being able to tell people what to do and not say I need help. It's counterintuitive, just like skiing. You bend over to go downhill instead of going backwards to stay upright.

And most leaders by finding that word help and to be able to say to the team, look, I can't transform this company. You can't transform it, but we can together. And that's what the little tool that we introduced to that group of six hundred is still alive today. It's called the peer learning process. So how do we learn together? What is the process of learning?

I am staying with the company until twenty twenty seven, December. So I have about a year and a half. And I can tell you personally, and I think it's our business, and I'm working with our leadership team and practicing what I preach, which is shared leadership, helping them articulate what will keep us going for the next 40 years. Why are we in business anyway? What are we doing? And I think this is a good question for any CEO in any business. What business is what business am I in? Where am I going with that business? What strategy do I have? What are my priorities now? Now could be six months, a year. For me it's 16 months. And so what help do I need in order to do that? And I think those are critical questions for any leader, anywhere, anytime, to be able to ask those questions. And so for me and for Lim, our why, our purpose is very important. We have a purpose of transforming companies. Because we think that transforming companies will help us transform countries and transform the world. into a more collaborative place. So I think each of us can say, why am I in business? Why this business? Why is this business important to all the other businesses? And we all have a role to play. I'm not saying that I am in the only business that makes sense. You're in a fabulous business, helping people like me find their voice and others who are listening hear that voice to discover What's in it for me? What can I take away? What can I learn so that I can become a stronger team, a stronger business, and therefore increase our earnings? Earnings have got to be there. But it's not the focus. The focus should be on learning. And I think that for all of us and for me over the next year and a half, how can we learn? And I'm working now with. China and India and Singapore, three countries who have new leaders for the CEO of Singapore, the CEO of Lim China, and the CEO of Lim India. So my job is to work with them, support them in developing branding, a business, so that the CEOs in those countries can see and understand that they have a choice. And the choice that they can make. Shared leadership, which is different than the pyramid paradigm of tell, yell, bully, fire sue. To listen, to say thank you, to say, how can I help? How can we work together? How can we learn together? So that, of course, we can earn better together. But it's the so that that comes later. It's first getting to know you, connecting. So that's a that's the answer to your question. What's what's in it for for for us?

I'm on LinkedIn. A lot of people are on LinkedIn, so you can find me there. Write me a note. I'll give you my email address, my name, Ernie.turner. At limglobal.net, N-E-T. And just write me a note and say, Ernie, I heard the podcast and I have a question. And I think a question is a wonderful way to open up. To discover. And my question has been so what's the next chapter of my life? And I'm very excited because it goes back to AstraZeneca and the PLP. So I have discovered that there are two real big challenges that we face as a planet, as a larger community. And it's sustainability. Topic that you and I both talked about. That's no longer a nice to have. That if we don't pay attention to what I am doing, what are we doing? What could we do? What should we do? What will we do? It's not going to get done. And sustainability is a planetary effort that we need to collaborate. We need to work together. It's no longer a myth, it's a reality. The second one is peace. How can we avoid These wars that are killing so many people, that are taking so many billions, trillions of dollars, so much time, causing so much pain. What can we do? What can I do? So these are the two things for my next ten years. How can I be instrumental in some small way in making this a more peaceful planet and a more sustainable planet?

Well, thank you, audience, for listening too and make great questions, thank you. I enjoyed the conversation. To be continued.