A brief summary of the 2009 Global Leadership Summit

This year’s leadership conference continued the humanitarian and postmodern message.  Plenty to take away, the challenge now is in the application.

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The what?

Each year, the faith-based Willow Creek Association gathers leaders from business, humanitarian causes and churches to speak at The Global Leadership Summit.  The Summit kicked off this year in August at the Chicago headquarters, gathering around 120,000 delegates live and via sattelite and clocking in as a top ten Twitter trending topic.  The conference is then repeated on screens via DVD across the globe over the following months.

My previous trips up the Summit

My attendance this year in Toowoomba, Queensland was my third summit.  I was shaped significantly in 2007 by Marcus Buckingham, who’s strengths-based message introduced me to the underlying concept of positive psychology.  Perhaps it was just my frame of reference at the time, but the 2007 roster which included Buckingham, HP’s Carly Fiorina, military strategist Colin Powell, and business strategist Michael E. Porter felt geared towards leadership development for any leader in any organisation.

The 2008 summit by contrast felt much more focused on changing the world.  The likes of International Justice Mission’s Gary Haugen, Prison Entrepreneurship Program’s Catherine Rohr and ex-Medtronic CEO Bill Georgemade you question what you were doing with your life.  There was also a strong representation from leaders who were looking at church from a different perspective, such as internet-centric Craig Groeschel from Lifechurch.tv, Gateway Church pastor and author of “No Perfect People Allowed” John Burke, and  multi-ethnic church proponent Efrem Smith.

2009: Save the world, do church different

This year’s roster continued the two undercurrents of humanitarian focus and postmodernism’s deconstructive and relative conversational approach to church. Even as I took vigorous notes, I felt both frustration and encouragement as I heard sentiments Theresa and I have shared for the past few years.  Common language shared across the speakers included terms such as “conversation”, “story”, “deconstruct”, “dialogue” and “meta-narrative”.

Gary Hamel, Director of Management Innovation Lab, focused on organisational change and structure by calling for a change in the way we change.  Key points included: 1) authority comes not from position but from the leader’s value-add to the organisation; 2) organisational change is held hostage to the leader’s resistance to change; and 3) organisations must fight denial by facing facts, questioning beliefs and listing to renegades.  Hamel shared sentiments with Dave Gibbons from Newsong Church, who stated: 1) vision starts from the fringe of early adopters and creatives rather than centralised with the leader; 2) relationships trump vision; and 3) a need to support an understanding of personality and strengths with a person’s story.

Other highlights included an interview with the Jessica Jackley, co-founder of micro-lending website www.kiva.org, which is scheduled to lend over US$10 million by 2010.  Good African Coffee CEO Andrew Rugasira made a case for trade, not aid, based on the negative correlation between aid and African GDP.  Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair and U2’s Bono added star power, although clips of pastors sharing practical application of Bono’s humanitarian appeal were the hero of the interview segment.

As presenter Harvey Carey stated, the risk with conferences such as these is that one goes, collects the binders, and has no application.  However, this presumption was challenged by Compassion International CEO of 16-years Wes Stafford, who stated that his team has doubled in size since starting his annual attendance four years ago.   From my perspective, can I claim my attendance over the past three years has resulted in the close to tripling of staff at the company for which I am the studio production manager? Probably not directly, but it sure didn’t hurt.

This post was a top-of-mind download of material.  Expect more detailed posts as I work to apply individual items through the year.  If you attended, I would be interested in continuing the conversation to hear what stuck with you and what changed in your life.