As I alluded in my initial TEDx Redux, the inaugural Auckland event was awesome. In the next three posts I will briefly cover my perspectives on the presentations delivered at this, the first TEDx event in Auckland, New Zealand.
The first speaker was a fascinating guy called Michael Henderson [UPDATE: Looks like something ‘weird’ is happening with his domain,try here for his cached page in the interim] , a Corporate Anthropologist. As well as being unemployable (who want’s an Anthropologist anyway?), he is never bored – because people are so interesting to study. Some observations:
- Organisations are the modern tribes
- CEO – Interesting title
- Chief – Head of the tribe
- Executive – Head of Structure
- Officer – Very Militaristic – Head of Strategy
- The difference between a cult and a culture is:
- In a cult, the leader sees greatness in themselves
- In a culture, the leader sees greatness in people
- Silo mentality never occurs in a tribe
- Engagement Studies
- Organisations:
- Engagement = email sort
- Worldwide ~20% of employees are engaged and 80% sit on the fence
- Tribes
- Engagement = contact sport
- No tribes run engagement surveys, all members are engaged 100% as you are either learning, doing or teaching
- Organisations:
“Why is no one teaching GenY to respect those who came before them as sources of learning?”
Executives go on a ‘retreat’ (never an advance?) then return to proclaim new company values to their employees.
- Employees don’t hear values, they hear violations;
“Integrity, really?? Aren’t you the CxO trying to set up XYZ to fail so you can get more headcount/budget?â€
“Language is the bloodline of a tribeâ€
His parting observation was on the two dynamic forces of organisations: Relationship versus Results
“Measure yourself on Relationship versus Result – is the win [on this point] worth more than the long term relationship?â€
The interesting observation I made about his talk was that, not only was I noting the same points as one of my colleagues, these same points were also being noted by a number of other ‘corporate types’ around where we were seated.
For another summary of the talk, click here to see what Missing Link said.
Update: A TED talk on this theme of Anthropology and Tribes was posted recently “David Logan on Tribal Leadershipâ€
Update: Domain seems to be back – have adjusted links & text
Update: September 2011 – Added Michaels new business sites and the following TEDx video…
This was an excellent session and an excellent start to TEDx Auckland. I’ve already referred back to this session several times. Well written up.
.-= Simon Gianoutsos´s last blog ..Barcamp Auckland 3 Synopsis =-.
Thanks to all those on twitter who’ve let me know that there’s something up with the link to Michaels website – I’ve dropped a Google Cache link into the article, and have called Michael to let him know. (The speed of social media rocks doesn’t it?) – Cheers, Rob