Trinity College, Iveagh House, & Irish Parliament

It was an emotional morning. Not in the Oprah sense but rather in learning the value of creating an emotional vision to motivate and inspire others to go well beyond their traditional capacities. The morning began at Trinity College with a leadership lecture from Jan and a 3 hour panel from local business leaders who were each very impressive. The panel exceeded my expectations in the amount of insight and wisdom I will be able to take back with me and included no shortage of brilliant quotes and taglines.

Among the notable learnings:

Leaders should experiment and look for ways to chip away for small improvements. The topic was brought up as an expansion on Jim Collin’s Good to Great research and focused on how organizations and teams that focus on continuous improvement and small wins differentiate themselves. This discussion made me think of the obstacles I face professionally when confronted with the mentality of “how we did it before was good enough, so we don’t have to change anything now.” This is a common struggle for me in my role of Quality Engineering and reinforces the need to seek continuous improvement.

As mentioned above, emotional motivation was a common theme in the morning’s discussion along with how vital making connections on a human level is for effective leaders (and coaches). My favorite point in the morning’s discussion was to move beyond transactional relationships. I wrote in my first post how my personal emphasis in observing different leaders during this trip is focused on coaching. Effective coaches need to pull along willing participants rather than push along compliant participants. When I return home, I will start work in my first roles as a manager and as a coach as I transition to implementing quality improvement initiatives with an external company and managing a summer intern. I hope to bring what I learned about relationship development and emotional influence into each of those new roles because the way to success is taking care of your people.

Finally, Jan gave a leadership presentation which included description of the expeditions he leads with special forces groups and business executives. These expeditions are focused on endurance and taking leaders out of their comfort zone. One of the lessons from these expeditions is to demonstrate how teams come together when things get tough. I’ve experienced this unification during athletics but often see adversity drive teams further apart professionally. Ultimately, its on the leaders to bring teams together during times of adversity and align the team to persevere.

The panel consisted of Andrew Parish, Manmeet Abrol, and David Collings. Each offered unique perspective and valued insight.

Highlights from each panelist included the following insights on effective leadership:

Andrew Parish

“Leadership is like a piece of string. Strong when you pull people with you but ineffective when pushed.”

Transparency builds loyalty. Share the problem with the group to create a sense of responsibility and accountability.

Build trust, share the problem and leave your ego at the door.

Manmeet Abrol

Your strength will be what you are passionate about and willing to go the extra mile on

Always ask the question don’t hesitate

David Collings

Build trust through transparency

Move beyond transactional relationships

Create a culture through integrity consistency and authenticity

What gets rewarded gets reinforced.

Drive change through small wins

Leaders should experiment

After the panel, we walked down Grafton Street through St. Stephen’ Green to Iveagh House where we spoke with diplomats on the advancement of Irish Economic Initiatives. Each diplomat was extremely intelligent and articulate and the building itself was breathtaking. We learned Irish history, current economic strategy and that the formal stance of the Irish is that they “Regret Brexit.”

Following Iveagh house we toured the Irish Parliament which was interesting to see after just being in Washington DC and touring the US capitol two weeks ago.

Today was fulfilling and insightful and I look forward to our first day of consulting with axial3D as we head to Belfast first thing in the morning.