The power of getting out of the building - Abundium's Emerging Leaders in Multinationals 2024

If there is a single trait linked to outstanding leadership, it's learning. Some of the best learning occurs during conversations with others facing similar challenges and having tried different solutions. The only way to do this is to get out of the building and immerse yourself in a different environment.

I was fortunate to be included in a great event hosted by Abundium that challenged my thinking and provided great opportunities to connect with like-minded leaders. It made me wish I had access to such a community when I was at HP many years ago, leading their marketing function. I witnessed firsthand the power of like-minded communities of leaders learning together.

The main theme for the day was "High Performance Leadership."

Here is my summary of the day and some quotes that stood out:

We were welcomed with great passion and enthusiasm by Abundium, MC Chloe Lees

The agenda then officially began with Rich Hirst, CEO & Co-Founder of Abundium, describing the unique challenges Australian country leaders of multinationals face. A message that resonated with me from my early days at HP. This market typically makes up between 1-5% of global revenue for most multinationals, so the attention and resources this region gets often reflect this relatively small market size. The upside is that it provides multinational leaders the opportunity to innovate and try out things that may be too risky in other markets.

Rich shared some incredible insights based on high-performance research:

"People labeled as high performers perform better" and "Your expectations of yourself determine your performance."

These are excellent reminders of the importance of psychology in performing at the highest levels.

Next on stage was Nicky Sparshott GAICD, the former CEO of Unilever Australia and now the Global Chief of Transformation. Nicky shared her leadership journey and strategies for balancing career progression and burnout with Dani Matthews, Co-Founder of Adbundium.

She shared a great quote from her mother that has inspired her leadership journey:

"If you aim for the stars, you might get the moon!"

The most interesting part of the conversation concerned purpose and profit. There has been a trend away from the primary focus on profits in business over the past few years as communities demand more from business leaders. Unilever and Nicky have been leading the organization towards having more impact on issues such as sustainability.

Ultimately, this is a balancing act and a significant challenge for leaders. Profits are visible, while purpose means many different things to different people. In our work, purpose comes from companies' positive impact on customers' lives. Of course, the purpose can be broader than this and include the impact on the environment and communities in which businesses operate. What is certain is that society today expects more from business, and leaders will continue to be challenged to demonstrate commitment to other stakeholders. Nicky described this challenge as follows:

"Leaders must embrace a paradox mindset – purpose and profit are not mutually exclusive."

What does this mean? Most answers to leadership challenges are not black and white, and pursuing one versus the other is not the most sustainable approach. Integration of purpose as a means to profit allows businesses to thrive.

Her final advice to leaders in the room: "Deliver what you say you will, and you will build the credibility necessary to lead."

How Artificial Intelligence augments human high performance

The next speaker was Sean Williams, Global CEO and Founder of AutogenAI. Sean is a serial entrepreneur brought out of retirement by the rise of AI. He gave a great talk, sharing his deep understanding of the intersection of business and technology.

He is seeing an inflection point in the market with the rise of Chat GPT:

People are shifting their thinking from:

"I might get sacked if I buy this software; To, I might get sacked if I don't!"

Sean made a case that innovation is about speeding up what humans already did and described the history of innovations over the past few centuries: horse to car, print to email, etc. His business provides:

• A solution for those involved in winning bids in competitive marketplaces.

• Supercharging teams responsible for researching.

• Writing and completing bids.

He described some interesting limits on AI now that every data source has been integrated into the large language models. He argued that the next decade will be about deployment rather than massive improvement in the models themselves.

How to build high-performance environments

Andy Meikle, a human high-performance expert, was the next speaker. He delivered some excellent, thought-provoking, and challenging ideas and allowed us to engage with others in the room to test our thinking.

Andy began by citing some research into high performers, which asked the question:

"Are your best performance days ahead of you or behind you?"

Andy asked us to guess the percentage of people who answered, "My best days are ahead."

The answer was that more than 90% said their best performance days were ahead of them regardless of age. My interpretation is that high performance is a future-focused positive/growth mindset based on a belief that "I can and will always get better."

Andy's session walked us through his propriety high-performance model that can be applied in business. A few quotes during his session stood out for me:

"If you are interested in high performance and not in global benchmarks, you are NOT really interested in high performance."

This is very clear in sports; people compete under the same conditions with clear rules and objectives. To recreate this in business is more difficult, but it can be done. It requires determining what high performance looks like for each role and having simple measures that define performance.

Some other key quotes that stood out from Andy's talk:

"If people are not turning up to study you yet, you are not high performing."

"People adjust to their circumstances. Therefore, there must be circumstances that stimulate them to perform."

"The leader creates the circumstances for people to perform."

"A high-performance environment that lowers its minimum standards loses. The minimum standard protects your credibility."

"In a high-performance environment, the best performers get high rewards."

High-performing people want to stay and are attracted to:

Goals that are: CLEAR, MEANINGFUL, AND DIFFICULT

"The culture must dominate the metrics to avoid "win at all costs" problems, e.g., Boeing, Enron, and VW."

On Team composition:

What is the tone of your team? How does it feel? What is the tempo?

A high-performance team knows when to lift the tempo as well as when to recover.

"If you are considering starting a band, get a good lead singer!"

"You need to occupy the full space of your leadership – don't show hesitancy."

Next, he shared the idea of neuro commitment using the analogy of waking up in the morning and not being sure whether to get up or go back to sleep. If we are in two minds, we are not really committed.

What happens when you are in between? You must commit one way.

Neuro commitment is described in sports as being in THE ZONE. In music, it is "FLOW" and in science: "INSIGHT"

"Sometimes that part of you that wants to make you safe makes you unsafe."

Andy gave the example of skiing down a hill and not quite being fully committed, leaning back on the skis rather than being centered and forward, committing to the descent.

"That which you commit to, you make work."

Ian Bailey, MD of Kmart Group

Part of Ian's approach is to "insert the idea of discontent." This idea keeps the team hungry and looking to continue growing and progressing.

As his career has developed, he spends more time on the team and culture.

"Read the team – sometimes you need to back off for better performance."

"It is a race we need to grow 15% a year, and if you stop, the party is over, so there is pressure."

There was a great question from the audience: How do we get people excited about the business's performance?

Ian's answer:

"The numbers are not really spoken about at the front line. The focus here is on customers, things that are practical for them."

The final session included Gabi Mittas, GM ANZ, Amgen, Kelly Van Nelson, Senior Executive, Serco, and Isaiah Dawe, CEO & Founder, ID. Know Yourself sharing their stories of how they manage to maintain high performance levels. While their specific practices varied, they each had methods to balance the stress of jobs with high levels of responsibility and pressure. From walks across the Sydney Harbour bridge to ice baths, each integrated effective ways to manage recovery and continue performing with high energy and ambition levels.

Dani Matthews, the Chief Growth Officer and Co-founder of Abundium ended the day's session with some time for reflection on the question:

What are the two big moves you will make to 10X your leadership?

We shared those with others in the room to make them public and reinforce our commitment to making them happen.

Overall, it was a great day of learning and discussion with a room of high performers who all decided to leave the building for a day!

That wraps up my snapshot of the great value of the event. It is clearly one to attend in 2025!

#adbundiumelm #leadership #highperformance