I have just finished the first four weeks of my Fulbright fellowship. The first part of the fellowship is the Global Leadership Executive Forum conducted by the Carnegie Bosch Institute.
The four weeks' period has been an intense roller coaster ride. I was gently informed that there could be better locations for a fellowship in the US, but Pittsburgh was just great. It's a small city with beautiful views all around ( the image is of Pittsburgh from a small hilly suburb called Mount Washington). It has been a phenomenal transformation from a declining industrial city to a beautiful university town.
The program itself was intense with courses on strategy, leadership, culture, change management and other topics packed from morning to late evening. The participants were of eight nationalities with Indian and Germans making the bulk of class of 30. Coming as it did after 15 to 20 years of professional experience to most of us, the topics were very relevant. The faculty were from top schools and well experienced in executive education. The content is a mix of theory and application. I liked the structure of the program, the emphasis was not only giving inputs but ensuring that we understood and applied it by regular sessions of reflections on the inputs.
I was pleasantly surprised by the inclusion of improvisational theater as one of the themes. Stories and visual images communicate far better than talking about concepts using data. People want to relate to some thing they already know so stories are very good in communicating. In improvisational theater you learn to communicate without preparation. I thought it was a terrific idea to include it in the program. Over the years I observed many people who are very good subject matter experts but poor communicators. I think it is a result of lopsided education system that put emphasis on learning from books and exams but very little emphasis on how you communicate your ideas.
I will conclude with a quote from Prof Michael Brimm who taught us on leadership:
A fundamental task of leadership is providing simplicity of thinking – a clear story – that effectively communicates the mission and fundamental strategic path of the business. Failure to accomplish this yields a "cognitive complexity" that frustrates and paralyzes organization into inaction and failure to take necessary decisions.
