The Leadership Challenge

We operate on automatic pilot, not really noticing what's going on around us, believing we know everything we need to know, viewing the world from established categories, and operating from a single point of view." This last bit about established categories and a single point of view really hit home with me, in part because of an experience I had immediately before the gathering at the Hyatt. Thanks to my uncanny knack for getting lost, I had gone to the wrong end of the hotel when I arrived, and I wandered the whole length of a concourse packed with corporate training sessions before confirming that I was in the wrong place. I'm not one to be deterred by an occasional blind alley, but by the time I made it out, my shoulders were scrunched inward and my gaze was fixed firmly on the floor. It weighs you down to try to decipher row after row of signs written in acronyms of bold capital letters, with hyphens and decimal points in unfamiliar places. Such is the language of people who talk only among themselves, labels on the boxes we put ourselves in. If you've ever been in a situation where everyone around you was speaking jargon that you didn't understand, you can probably relate to my incredible shrinking feeling. This is one of the things we're working on through WorkforceStLouis2.0. We strive to bring business leaders together to find common language with which to articulate and communicate a shared vision of a bright future for St. Louis - a metro region competing in a global talent marketplace in which agility, flexibility, critical thinking, team-work, and leadership are essential tools for getting ahead. If Jim Kouzes is right, then the key to anticipating this future lies in a closer examination of where we are right now. It would be amazing if, like Houdini, we have everything we need already in our grasp-we just need to look extremely carefully to see it. Blair Forlaw is the Director of WorkforceStLouis2.0, a program administered by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL). WorkforceStLouis2.0 supports business leadership to strengthen the regional human capital value chain by encouraging strategic investments in employee learning and development, enhancing the dynamic exchange of information, experience, and best practices, and building skills and competencies at all occupational levels in companies of every size and sector throughout the St. Louis metro economy.