Five Oaks has it's largest group ever going to the Leadership Summit this year. Registrations stand now at 115! Here are some excerpts from a recent Fast Company article on the Leadership Summit that will surely get you pumped up (you can link to it here):
"Willow Creek offers a deep set of lessons about organizational life that I have not been able to learn anywhere else," says Babson College president and former Limited Brands COO Len Schlesinger, who has studied the church for nearly two decades, though he himself is Jewish. This year, he took several of his Babson colleagues to the summit, which has also attracted delegations from Best Buy, Chick-fil-A, and Toms Shoes. "The quality of the teaching is extraordinary," Schlesinger says. "The fact that Willow Creek is a church and the fact that it is evangelical mean that some people may have a great deal of difficulty with it, but they skip it at their loss."
"I have my four Es," [Jack] Welch says, referring to the four leadership qualities he looks for in executives: Someone who has energy; who energizes others; who has edge ("someone who can say yes or no decisively"); and who can execute. "Bill has them all, along with a strong P: passion. He's a winner. He could be running a company -- or a country."
For Toms Shoes founder Blake Mycoskie, who spoke this year about his company's "conscious capitalism," the summit was also a learning experience. The highlight for him was Hybels's interview with Welch. "Welch talked about the dangers of the 'meeting after the meeting.' That was happening at Toms, and it's not anymore," Mycoskie says, citing a new daily senior-leadership meeting implemented in direct response to Welch's summit message."Bill Hybels talked about recruiting fantastic people and being bummed when they quit," Mycoskie continues. "That has affected our hiring process. Before, we were hiring as fast as possible. I've since told my HR director to take the extra month to make sure we're getting the right people."
The two-day summit schedule is carefully choreographed to balance secular voices with those of pastors. "If we filled all our sessions with the Jim Collinses and Jack Welches and did not have the faith leaders, the summit would go away in a year or two," Hybels says. "What has made this thing last is the mix: It's the blend of high-impact, God-honoring messages with savvy, street-smart, don't-spiritualize-everything lessons from business."
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