My Encounters, My Life: Professional Fellows Congress Day 2 & Dinner with World Learning Professional Fellows

29 May 2019

Dr Deidre Combs on Three Quick Steps to Improved Leadership

Using Dr Combs' Elemental Leadership Style Assessment, we became aware of our preferred leadership style. Dr Combs also shared about authentic leadership and emphasised the need to solicit feedback from others to reduce reduce the blind spots and unknown unknowns in the Johari Window.

Dr Combs shared the PIE feedback model - Positive, Informative, Even Better.

Anthony Robinson on Change Makers

Anthony started his segment by asking why we were here. He shared that it was not just for networking, but to be part of a community of change makers. Citing the story of Rosa Parks, he shared that the traits of change makers are 1) Takes Risks; 2) Courage; 3) Humility.

Anthony talked about having a purpose-driven leadership/career, "Lifestyle guides your career." We took some time to come up with our individual Mission Statements. If an activity/involvement comes along, one should reflect and see how it aligns with one's own mission statement, and if it does not, to consider how much time one should be spending on it.

Emphasising the need to be able to articulate our own personal story, he shared about his downtrodden past and how he got to where he is today. One should have in mind different versions of one's personal story, for different audiences.

Finally, Anthony shared that Transformational Leadership requires GRIT:

Generosity
Respect
Integrity
Truth & Transparency

Graham F. West, Communications Director, Truman Center on "Perfecting your Pitch"

Graham shared that a pitch should address 3 key questions in 2 minutes:

Why this? - Describe the problem that you are working to solve
Why you? - Establish credibility as a leader and demonstrate that you understand your audience
Why now? - Establish urgency and why it matters at this very moment

It is useful to have different versions of the pitches:

5-second pitch: Most concise, single-sentence version
2-min pitch: Build off and use value narratives. Tell a story, establish emotional connection, demonstrate you share important values with the audience
30-second pitch: Briefly describe how you will execute your idea and mission

Graham segregated the audience into 5 different types and shared the corresponding narrative required:

Active Supporter - basic narrative
Supportive but not active - majority narrative
Questioning/Unsure - persuasion narrative. It's all about trust, and seeking that permission to be heard
Active Opposition
Inactive Opposition - emphasise on values/emotions

"You can't share what you believe until you can articulate what you believe"

5 ways to articulate:

Connect through emotions
Identify shared values - what are your values and what is the audience's values?
Learn 3 value narratives for any issues
"My number one goal is keeping us safe"
"I believe my organisation should be a leader in this space" - convincing audience that you can solve the problem
"I understand that there's a problem and I'm here to solve it" - no-nonsense; focus on urgency; reframe the discussion
Use short personal story
Make pitch by putting the above all together

Graham ended his sharing by sharing a story. Once, villagers living by the river encountered floating babies that were abandoned upstream. Villager A took action by saving the babies. Villager B took action by teaching the babies how to swim. Villager C took a step back and then went upstream and stopped the person who's throwing the babies.

We went for our Regional Networking Lunch. East Asia and the Pacific Professional Fellows gathered at the South American AB room for lunch.

Group photo of Professional Fellows from the East Asia and Pacific region

Next, we had presentations from the Alumni Impact Awardees.

Susan Hay Patrick, Chief Executive Officer, United Way of Missoula County

Susan hosted Professional Fellows in her organisation, United Way of Missoula County, for several years.

Susan shared the importance to be outward-facing, and to look inward (reflective), and think about how does one contribute to the dysfunction. She urged Professional Fellows to find a way to reach out to others, and to mentor the young.

Susan reminded Professional Fellows not to lose the sense of humour, which is an act of leadership. Funny leaders = good leaders. And to never lose hope in whatever we do.

Maria Monchari Omare, Executive Director, The Action Foundation

Professional Fellows were then divided into 20 groups for the Pitch Practice Workshop. The organiser had grouped Fellows based on their areas of interest. For our group, it was economic empowerment.

Pitch Practice Workshop at California Room

Professional Fellows with our Moderator Levi Baer

World Learning organised a dinner for its Professional Fellows and requested for them to extend an invitation to one other Professional Fellow. I got my invitation through Ami the previous day. Senior Program Officer Vlad Spencer hosted us at his place.

There, we got to meet Professional Fellows from China, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Turkey, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia!

A good spread of Indian cuisine

Vlad got the World Learning Professional Fellows to introduce themselves and their "dates"

With Maureen Nisha (Fiji), Nurana Hasanova (Azerbaijan), a former staff of World Learning (US) and Selcuk Dundar (Turkey)

Chatted with Selcuk on his community in Turkey as well as his work with the water treatment facility. We also discussed about Singapore.

With Ante Medic (Croatia), Jana Tanasic (Bosnia and Herzegovina), Sara Zavernik (Slovenia) and Jocelyn

Enjoyed a discussion with Jana and Sara on their Chicago experience. "Crazy Rich Asians" were brought up as usual and we offered our friends to come visit and take a look the non-fictional sceneries.