Festival of Global People is Going Virtual 2020

In an exciting new series of webinars, video and podcasts, we will bring together thought-leaders from around the world to discuss the blueprint for a new style of leadership that puts people at the heart of business and growth and combines purpose, performance and passion in a global context.

Marianne Curphey

24 March 2020

This article is taken from the latest issue of Relocate magazine – the must read for HR, global managers and relocation professionals.
Click on the cover to access the digital edition, read all of the articles on our website, or order your printed copy.

“Many businesses are facing fundamental questions over their purpose, aims and reason for existence,” says Fiona Murchie, managing editor of Relocate magazine and Relocate Global. “It is an immensely challenging time to be a leader and a manager. Organisations are having to be agile and reinvent themselves, and need to embrace fresh thinking if they are to survive.“The world is competitive on a global, not just a national level and amid the COVID–19 crisis, we are having to respond to challenges that will benefit from a collaborative approach. The old blueprint of leadership doesn’t work anymore. We originally introduced the Festival of Global People two years ago, looking at not just mobility and relocation, but global leadership, productivity and management challenges across multiple disciplines and industry sectors. For 2020, we will explore the new skills executives will need in this rapidly changing world. We are staging a virtual Festival of Global People with a series of webinars, video, podcasts and virtual events to focus on leadership and purpose, as well as international management and global mobility. Because without excellence in these areas, organisations will struggle in the months and years ahead.”

Navigating a rapidly changing world

In an uncertain world, your employees look to you for inspirational leadership and an ability to welcome and embrace change. Companies that fail to change and don’t make the most of the talent and skills that their people possess are at risk of falling behind in this global economy. With coronavirus, for example, we are seeing how, at times of great threat and crisis, we look to leaders to keep us informed in an honest and open dialogue. In this context, how can CEOs, COOs and executive teams build an organisation based on trust and inclusivity, and really listen to the concerns, ideas and feedback of their staff?

Connect virtually with C-suite executives, managers, HR professionals, mobility experts, educators, coaches, relocation specialists and diversity experts over the coming months. Our line-up of the best thought-leaders in the industry will be analysing the key trends of 2020. They will be looking at the new suite of skills that managers need to navigate the challenges of talent shortages, the advance of AI and technology, the multi-generational workforce, issues around Brexit and the demand for new, more open and innovative leadership styles.

Trust at the heart of leadership

Dr John Blakey is the author of The Trusted Executive and one of the top international thought leaders on organisational trust. He combines prize-winning doctoral research on trust with practical experience as a business leader and pioneer in the executive coaching profession. “When senior leaders act as role models for trust, then this cascades down through an organisation,” he says. “The behaviour of the CEO is critical in fostering a high-trust culture. Leaders say to me that they feel as though the rules of the game have changed, but no one has explained what they need to do to navigate these changes.”He describes the shift as “renewing the licence to lead based on trust rather than the old one based on power.” To achieve this, CEOs and leaders need to be more open, vulnerable and receptive to new ideas. Many leaders find this both exhilarating and terrifying. “One leader said to me recently, ‘We know the system is broken, but we need to find out how to fix it,’ and that is the challenge,” Dr Blakey says. “Millennials ask challenging questions, such as why is the singular purpose of business profit?”Dr Blakey’s presentation will ask Why Trust, and why now? Using deep data, he will explain how the three pillars of trust are ability, integrity and benevolence, and how these will underpin the future success of an organisation.

Doing things differently

Debra Corey is the best-selling author of HR, Reward & Leadership Expert and the co-author of Build It: The Rebel Playbook for Employee Engagement. She is responsible for delivering HR strategies and programmes in a rebellious way, pushing the boundaries and challenging the status quo to truly drive employee engagement. Ms Corey is a rewards guru, with more than 20 years’ experience as a rewards leader, speaker and teacher.She will explore Being an employee engagement rebel in a fast-changing global environment and will ask, “What would management look like if we did things differently, shook up the accepted ways of thinking and challenged the status quo?” She says, “We can’t just do things the old way. We need to rethink how employers talk to their staff. My challenge to managers is to stop lying and tell people the truth.”Her extensive research into successful employee reward programmes has looked at schemes run by companies as diverse as HSBC, Gap and Virgin Group. For example, HSBC has a listening project – officially called HSBC Exchange, but known colloquially among staff as 'Shut up and Listen'. It involves managers having regular communications with staff so that they can listen to employees talk about “anything and everything” to do with the business. The role of the manager is to listen actively, giving employees space and time to express their views.Gap has introduced a continuous assessment and feedback system, known as Grow Perform Success (GPS), which aims to nurture and support employees and managers as they move through the organisation. This means managers are supported regularly, rather than just receiving a 360-degree appraisal once a year.

A new blueprint for leadership

Paul Williamson is head of talent development at ATG, the world’s largest live theatre group, with 50 venues in Britain, the US and Germany, and international sales of £155.8 million. He is a chartered member of the CIPD, an experienced presenter and facilitator and an AoEC qualified executive coach.He has developed the Leading Lights leadership development programme for senior leaders, which includes strategy and purpose, emotional intelligence, coaching skills, resilience, managing and motivating teams, presentation skills and trust. Mr Williamson has also developed Rising Stars, a two-year development programme for emerging leaders. He will look at the way we communicate and the effect that has on other people, with particular emphasis on how leaders can improve their communication skills.“All the work I do in terms of leadership development and coaching is about heightening people’s awareness of themselves and the impact they have on others,” he says. “Taking the analogy of a film score, I will be asking people to think about what their leadership theme music would be. What signals does it give to the people around you? My work is about helping people to become more mindful about the way they work within teams and how they can create a more inclusive approach.”He will stimulate discussion around the different ways people communicate – in terms of emotion, power and meaning. What is your personal style, how does this impact on the success of your leadership and how do other people respond to you? He will examine how leaders can modify their language to communicate effectively with as many people as possible.

Inclusive workplace cultures

Teresa Boughey, CEO of award-winning Jungle HR, brings her experience of working with executive boards and leadership teams during times of change and business transformations. She is passionate about enabling organisations to create inclusive workplace cultures. “Modern leadership is about creating a shared purpose with input from staff at every level of an organisation,” she says. She is passionate about inclusive leadership and what that looks like.“It is important because this is about how we attract and retain people,” she says. “People typically leave organisations because of a leader rather than the company itself. Given that we have a global talent shortfall in the workplace, organisations must take these steps now.”

Making the transformational shift

Leading academic and inspirational speaker, Professor Vlatka Hlupic is also the author of best-selling The Management Shift and her latest book, Humane Capital. She argues that companies that fail to adapt to the new way of working will flounder in the new global economy and may not be sustainable in the long run.Change is coming and those companies that don’t make the switch from the old “command and control” management models to a business that is more collaborative and inclusive will fail to thrive in the future, says Professor Hlupic. She will discuss what companies can learn from start-ups, how organisations can survive the huge technological changes that are taking place and how managers will play a vital role in redesigning workplace culture.Using case studies from Humane Capital, Professor Hlupic will explain why international executives, HR and mobility professionals and experts need to shift their management mindset to achieve success in the future. She will explain the toolkit that leaders, executives and managers need in this new model of leadership based on people, purpose and collaboration.She will discuss how adopting a new style of leadership will foster innovation and increase profitability. “Business as usual is not good enough anymore,” she says. “Individuals and organisations need to go through this big shift.”