The Art of Leadership recently presented 5 leading speakers to a packed crowed at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.
Audience at the Art of Leadership 2012
The event began with Marcus Buckingham, famous for helping create StrengthsFinder, the personal assessment tool that created an insightful and specific vocabulary to describe an individual’s ingrained talents. He also is responsible for popularizing the phrase “Top 5” to the business lexicon. Buckingham was witty, charming, and ran through his latest project StandOut. His most insightful comments were on the trend of personalized home pages on websites like Netflix, Facebook and Amazon.
Chester Elton, founder of The Carrot Principle, followed with a dynamic, interactive presentation in which he spoke about the importance of appreciation, recognition and culture to organizations. He also stressed the importance of being kind to all as you never really know what bad a day that person has had.
Susan Cain
The highly celebrated and anticipated Susan Cain followed. An overnight sensation, her TED talk on introverts has been seen by more than 2 million viewers and she has become the Spokesperson for Introverts. Although a quiet personality, she becomes quite passionate when advocating the rights from the oppressed group as she sees introverts. It is quite likely this Harvard Law grad will turn business hiring, primary educational school systems and even workplace layouts and interiors on their head with her groundbreaking work. Her speech was a variation on her TED talk and warranted numerous questions from the audience who recognized the significance of her work denouncing current trends of prioritizing group time and spaces.
Leonard Brody followed next with one of the most brilliant speeches at any conference. A dynamic personality combined with a genius brain, Brody spoke on innovation and how to lead in a blender, which is how he described today’s fast paced world. He also explained how Facebook has changed human behavior so we are now a generation of “sharers,” the full impact of which will not be understood or officially named until future generations look back upon this age.
Stephen Shapiro gave an interactive talk in which he emphasized the importance of thinking inside the box and of interacting and working with people different than you. He cited the example of how a toothpaste manufacturer innovated by turning to their sister concern a detergent bleach company for ideas.
Vijay Govindarajan
The program ended with a speech by Vijay Govindarajan, the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and considered one of the world’s leading experts on strategy and innovation. He spoke on reverse innovation (driven from developing to developed countries) and Strategic Architecture.
The event was compered by Ron Tite.
