Post 4: "How did you hear about ELS? How did you learn about this opportunity to build your toolbox of skills?"

The aim is to spread the word about this school.   European Leadership School is a place where we can collect skills that we will need later in life.  Many students are under the age of 25, but almost anyone will benefit from reading and discussing the Thoughts for the Day that Will Sutherland organizes (and students share with each other).

Let's be transparent:  (That's the focus of a book about business -- and many parts of our personal lives can be improved by letting people see ourselves and our motivations).   How can we turn this ELS experience into a "reality show" that viewers can benefit from by watching a series of short videos?



What if thousands of studnets could watch people on a small boat discover and discuss the "great ideas" that will make life better for many people?

What if thousands of students could watch people their age struggling and succeeding with temporary hardships and challenges?  

If you are a viewer, you can write to VisualandActive@gmail.com and suggest another challenge or you can comment below to the reading (about transparency).   We want to be transparent.  We want to be clear that the people who participate (with comments on this blog or in person on the boats) will shape the course.   Your comments, tweets and likes will attract attention (enough to bring in more students).

Go ahead, read more of the book...  You can find some of the essays online.

Goleman:  

O'Toole:  

REVIEW of the book



Here is a video about "Transparency"
Yes, you can be a business person:  discuss and watch what business people could discuss...




From the publisher:    

In a time when the reputation of an organization or a leader can be shattered by the click of a mouse, transparency is often a matter of survival in a world of global competition. But as stakeholders in different organizations increasingly clamor for transparency, what are they truly asking for? What is the promise of transparency? What are its very real risks? And why is it essential that leaders understand it? In this book, distinguished authors Warren Bennis, Daniel Goleman, and James O'Toole explore what it means to be a transparent leader, create a transparent organization, and live in an ever more transparent world culture.

In three interconnected essays, they examine transparency from three different vantage points—within and between organizations, in terms of personal responsibility, and finally, in the context of the new digital reality—all with an emphasis on how these relate to leaders and leadership. The first essay explores an urgent dilemma for every contemporary leader: how to create a culture of candor. The second essay—with the provocative title "Speaking Truth to Power"—discusses a prerequisite for transparency and a responsibility we too often fail to fulfill. The final essay explores how digital technology is making the entire world more transparent.

Combining theory and experience, this book offers both a long view of transparency and a wealth of practical advice. The ideas in each chapter will make anyone both a better follower and a better leader.

In Transparency, the authors–a powerhouse trio in the field of leadership–look at what conspires against "a culture of candor" in organizations to create disastrous results, and suggest ways that leaders can achieve healthy and honest openness. They explore the lightning-rod concept of "transparency" – which has fast become the buzzword not only in business and corporate settings but in government and the social sector as well. Together Bennis, Goleman, and O'Toole explore why the containment of truth is the dearest held value of far too many organizations and suggest practical ways that organizations, their leaders, their members, and their boards can achieve openness. After years of dedicating themselves to research and theory, at first separately, and now jointly, these three leadership giants reveal the multifaceted importance of candor and show what promotes transparency and what hinders it. They describe how leaders often stymie the flow of information and the structural impediments that keep information from getting where it needs to go. This vital resource is written for any organization–business, government, and nonprofit–that must achieve a culture of candor, truth, and transparency.