CSC Leaders LONDON POP UP: 8-10 April 2016
A message from one of our alumni
Between the 8 and 10 April 2016 a group of CSCLeaders alumni came together in London to reconnect and re-engage.
Saturday was a busy day at the Houses of Parliament. It gave us great opportunity to explore the work of Klaus Schwab, Founder and Executive Chairman of the WEF, on the 4th Industrial revolution. He highlighted that it is “characterised by a fusion of technologies that are blurring the lines between physical, digital and biological spheres” and that “may indeed have the potential to ‘robotize’ humanity and thus deprive us of our heart and soul.” This gave us a call to explore the kinds of leaders and leadership skills we need in this scary, yet exciting and exponential time.
At the same time 2016 also commemorated 400 years since the death of William Shakespeare and so it was an opportune time to celebrate his far-reaching impact than by using his play ‘The Tempest’ to make sense of our future/s. The overarching aim of the session invited us to consider change as a dynamic and collaborative process, informed by action that is strategic rather than reactive. ‘The Tempest’ with its rough magic was used to help frame thinking and prompt conversation around the importance of difference and diversity for organisational creativity. Through reflecting on the island as a metaphor we considered implications for our own style of leading and managing in the 21st century.
Rachel Dickinson, the Assistant Dean of the Undergraduate programme and a Principal Teaching Fellow at WBS, also told us more about Warwick Business School’s Create Programme, which is renowned for its social and creative approaches to complex problem solving, innovation and the development of interpersonal competence and skills.
This was followed by a tour of the Houses of Parliament and a well-deserved snack or two with a glass of bubbles to celebrate our time together.
Saturday night allowed us some downtime at the Lehore Kebab House where we celebrated over large plates of amazing food.
Sunday morning was spent at PWC where we shared our current personal leadership challenges and opportunities. Using a marketplace for ideas process we teamed up to help each other out through valuable dialogue and ideas creation. Sunday afternoon we stretched our thinking further by devising a strategy for how we could take our alumni engagements forward.
On Monday we travelled to the London offices of the Royal Bank of Scotland Meet to meet the RBC Global Head of Client Coverage, Francis Jackson, and hear his thoughts on leadership and innovation in the Financial markets. This enabled us to consider some of the practical aspects of leading an innovation team in times of turbulence and change. We finished up our pop up at St. James’s Palace with a high tea with HRH, Princess Anne.
What a fabulous first pop up. Hope you’ll join us again next year!
Warmest wishes
Ilka
CSCLeaders 2015