6th International JA-YE Alumni Europe Leadership Conference 2009

The Final Report evaluating the conference is now available to download!

We in the conference team would like to thank everyone who has been involved in any part of the conference for your contribution to this great result!

Download the Leaders of a sustainable Future evaluation report

On behalf of the Conference Team,
Andreas Eriksen
Project Manager

Dear all,

Please refer to below links for inspiration for the conference.

http://www.storyofstuff.com/

http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/alex_steffen_sees_a_sustainable_future.html

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/william_mcdonough_on_cradle_to_cradle_design.html

Enjoy!

Going through a time of great uncertainty, whoever belongs to an organisation, public or private, productive or non-profit, religious or social, any form of human endeavour, realizes how great nowadays is the gap between need and offer of effective leadership.

In this continuous change context, having to adapt to new conditions, becomes imperative to learn how to change your behaviour, the structure of your thinking, the way of reacting in order to successfully adapt to what the environment requires.

This kind of world with no barriers and limitations will become alien to managers and leaders grown up in a autocratic structure: they will no more be capable to lead effectively and will be crushed by stress unless they are able to develop new leadership styles.

Let’s see some possible advices.

First is necessary to be constantly on the alert in order to anticipate the need for change. Then, once identified, to press for rapidity of action to face the change.

The formula suggested is that change, once the need is identified, should be handled by the joint efforts of two different kind of leader.

The “explorer” plans the actions required, motivates his associates, makes it clear that mistakes can be accepted in the process, spreads the culture of change, prompts creativity.

The “ferryman” puts into being the project, helps going from A to B, reduces the resistance to change, helps his associates accepting change, being himself the first actor.

This very simple model was edited in a book in Italy, intended for head of companies, managers, men and women of any type of organisation and all those individuals that live every day situations that make them seek a way to stimulate, orient and reinforce those actions meant to a never ending improvement.

The book has become a consulting and management training tool we to stimulate people to add new styles (not only to change their style).

We think that behavioural change should be thought in a different way: not anymore replace some behaviour with another, but add different behaviours to the ones we already have and use.

Like learning a new language or a new music or song, also for behaviour learning a new one doesn’t mean to lose or remove the previously learned ones!

In this way changing gives people every day more chance, more instruments, “a larger repertory in which is easier to find the successful one for today situation”.

By Emanuele Kettlitz

Jørgen Mouridsen is Senior Consultant and Associate Professor at Aarhus University lecturing in communication studies. Jørgen has great experience working and studying in Canada, France and Japan as well as sailing in the Caribbean and South America for almost 25 years. Jørgen was originally educated as an electrical engineer, but has since then acquired several business executive degrees and diplomas. If you would like to hear more from Jørgen contact him at jorgenmo@hih.au.dk.

With the Globalization process still in progress after it’s acceleration several years ago, the migration streams at a level never witnessed in history, we can use the following statement for most countries in the world:

“The world in Denmark, Denmark in the world” (You can replace the word Denmark with most other countries and still have a true statement)

Even small and medium sized companies today operates globally, producing goods and services, sourcing and selling in a global context. The workplace has become multicultural, where you will have to work with and communicate with, a broad representation of different cultures.

Excellent language competencies in a world language such as English, is not sufficient in an intercultural communication setting. Intercultural Communication Competencies is necessary and probably the most important competencies the global player must master. 

What kinds of knowledge, motivations and skills constitute “competence” in the business context? The very nature of competence itself may differ across cultures. That is, cultures often can hold fundamentally different expectations about how competence ought to be displayed. Compare, for example, the organizations with which you are familiar to the typical Thai organization. In Thai companies, people are perceived as communicatively competent only if they know how to avoid conflict with others, can control their emotional displays (both positive and negative), can use polite forms of address when talking to others, and demonstrate respect, tactfulness, and modesty in their behaviors.

Most people recognize, that the cultural heterogeneity of the workforce brings with it special challenges and opportunities, both for companies and for individuals who work in them. Work teams that are culturally diverse, for example, are often more innovative than homogeneous work groups, but only if the team can use its differences to its advantage.

Those who recognize the importance and necessity of acquiring Intercultural Communication Competencies will be the winners on the Global Playground!

J. Mouridsen

Associate Professor

Aarhus University, IBT

- 25,820 pupils went to continuation school in 2006? It is a 7 per cent more than the year before.

- 36.4° C is the highest temperature and - 31.2° C is the lowest temperature measured in Denmark

- 35.6 hours is the usual weekly hours of work for an average Dane? While men usually works 38.3 hours a week, women work 32.5 hours.

- 12 times a year a Dane older than 18 years had contact to a doctor, dentist etc.? While women tops with 14 times a year, males visit a doctor 9 times.

- 5.8 mio. litres of soda water with alcohol were consumed in Denmark in 2007? It is a rise of more than 9 per cent compared to the year before.

- 542 mio. liters of beer were consumed in Denmark in 2007? It is the lowest beer consumption this decade and corresponds to a little less than one beer per Dane every day.

- 85 per cent of the Danish homes have an Internet connection? In 1997 it was only 10 per cent of the Danish homes, which were equipped with an Internet connection.

- There are 778,000 trailers in Denmark? If all vehicles were in the streets every third car would pull a trailer.

- There are 5,600 taxis in Denmark? The number is exactly the same as in 1994.

- 82 per cent of all families with children, including single breadwinners, had a car in 2007.

- Denmark’s three largest trading partners are Germany, Sweden and United kingdom. The three largest export goods are accordingly machines, crude oil and meat.

Esben Lindequist Kullberg is the founder of the consultant company LindequistKullberg, which is based on creating value through people's passion and creativity, specialising in coaching, creativity development, teamanalysis and -development. Before starting LindequistKullberg Esben worked 12 years as a visual artist and 8 years serving as a minister. If you would like to get in contact with Esben, feel free to write him on esben@lindequistkullberg.dk.

The Danish professor of psychology Hans Henrik Knoop recently wrote that we live on the edge of chaos. It may sound a bit pessimistic as if we all are heading towards times of disaster. But through this expression he tried to make a statement about the circumstances a world in constant and more and more accelerated changes implies on human life and on the leadership challenges we may face.

For the last twenty years we have seen an increased interest in leadership skills in connection to Change Management. It is probably still very important to focus on changes in organizations, but when global changes speed up, leadership challenges change. The American management professor John P. Kotter has for the last two decades talked about Change Management as an eight stepped process. In his thoughts the most important point in this process is the first step: the leaders ability to formulate the importance and the necessity to initiate change. To Kotter change management skills is crucial to organizational sustainability. He states that most businesses failed to develop because they failed to initiate organizational change, therefore, he says, the most important current leadership skill is the skill to perceive and initiate change processes. It would be arrogant of me to say that Kotters thoughts are outdated, but in the terms of sustainable leadership, it does seem as if a new picture emerges.�

Today changes are inevitable in terms of macro scale perspectives worldwide, and on organisational level as well. We don’t have to focus on create or implement them. As Hans Henrik Knoop states we live in times characterized by chaotic or at least very complex evolutionary patterns so changes come on us, whether we want or not. What really seem to be important in organizational life is how to integrate and root changes in the organization. We are moving from focus on Change Management to a focus on Anchor Management. Anchor Management is about how we cope with inevitable changes. It is about how we grasp these changes that constantly come on us from new emerging processes, new knowledge, new market structures, extremely differentiated client needs, and how we are able to root these changes in the organizational structures and in the corporate culture and identity.  Several Danish research results indicate that organizations that manage to work with corporate culture and corporate identity also manage to improve business results and increase turnover under these current circumstances. At the same time it seems that those business leaders who manage exceptionally in anchoring corporate changes are the leaders that focus on the informal structures i.e. on the human issues and on developing relations, communication and the social capital in the organization.

 If business leaders will be able to currently integrate the rapid changes in the world, my point is, that the main focus for time ahead is best practice on how business leaders facilitate knowledge flow, networking and their ability to facilitate and support decentralized decision-making. The work with these relational aspects of organizational life demands exceptional social intelligence and interpersonal skills. The most important interpersonal intelligence in this regard is the ability to understand and imagine how others feel. We see the impact already, but my guess is that it will be more and more significant important in the future:  Interpersonal relationship and empathy is crucial in terms of leadership skills. Because when it comes to organizational sustainability, working with the informal structures of organizations will be of top priority. Staying in a market characterized by constant change is very much about working with corporate culture, values and communication, and that is all about human interaction and relations. 

23-year old Katharina has for 2 years been the European Coordinator JA-YE Alumni Europe. Based in Graz, Austria she founded the Austrian alumni network, but has taken internships with JA in Toronto and Brussels. Furthermore Katharina wrote her master thesis on JA-YE Alumni Europe, so if anyone knows what we’re about it’s her! Currently she is studying a 4-language diploma, including Russian! If you are interested in hearing more about JA-YE Alumni get in contact with Katharina on katharina.krenn@campus02.at

On behalf of the European Coordinators of JA-YE Alumni Europe, I am delighted to welcome you to this conference blog for the 6th JA-YE Alumni European Conference hosted by YEAD- our Danish Alumni Organisation.

It is always a pleasure to look back on former conferences and be thrilled about the upcoming ones. Every JA-YE Alumni who once participated in a European conference, will never forget:

- The knowledge gained,

- The experiences created,

- All of the friends and connections made.

The conferences have been in Lithuania, Norway, France, Bulgaria, as well as in Italy since 2004 and will take place in Copenhagen, Denmark this year. From South to North from East to West, our JA-YE Alumni network has outgrown borders and steadily expanded in the last years. In fact we managed to excite many likeminded former JA-YE students during past conferences: approx. more than 250 Alumni have been united.

This year, of course, we are driven to further expand this number hoping to excite our Alumni with an outstanding new topic to work on: Sustainable Leadership

JA-YE Alumni Europe believes that sustainable leadership is a topic that raises many questions, can be perceived from different angles and each Alumni participating will have the chance to express his or her individual perception. Rather than already giving our Alumni answers, we would like to raise the right questions in order to make this frequently used term and its importance more understandable to our Alumni members. In the end JA-YE Alumni Europe believes that only by setting big hairy goals, facing challenges and overcoming obstacles, true leaders will identify their strength and weaknesses.

Questions we would like to rise:

- The way a leader interacts with people, the way environmental issues are faced, the way information is kept or shared?

- What do our Alumni think of CSR, are we as individual Alumni affected after all?

How will we as JA-YE Alumni Europe want to approach this topic?

By following our JA-YE Alumni vision:

Passion, relations, actions: Within JA-YE Alumni Europe we feel the passion to create relations and have the motivation to set actions in order to grow and develop our personality, soft and hard skills and finally together shape our characters to become leaders with the ability to inspire others.

We are looking forward meeting future and current Alumni in Copenhagen from the 28.7-2.8.2009!

Katharina Krenn
European Coordinator, JA-YE Alumni Europe

For most of you joining us in Copenhagen you might have some language difficulties - but not to worry! The following link will teach you some really useful phrases to sail you through the conference:

http://theprint.vox.com/library/posts/tags/danish+lesson/ 

I would like everyone to practice extra hard on lesson #44!

Sara Green Brodersen
Marketing Manager
“Leaders of a Sustainable Future Conference”

In our pursue to make this the best conference ever, we are please to announce our most recent partnership. Radisson SAS Scandinavia will be where you find your beds during the conference.

To host an event like this we needed something big enough to contain the motivation and creativity of 60 young entrepreneurs. 1 casino, 4-stars, 26 floors, 42 suites and 500 rooms… we believe that this - the largest hotel in Denmark will provide perfect framing for the conference. Read more »