Friday, August 17, 2007

What Can a Trader Learn from a Tribesman?

This is the new corporate ad that our organization has developed - I was so excited to see that out of the 8 words chosen so carefully to profile our organization, "Learning" was one! The tagline at the bottom is also interesting: "Bringing experts together to help solve our most pressing sustainable development challenges".

Earlier this week we had a programme planning session in which we explored our theory of change, visioned our unit in 5 years, and discussed the needs that we saw for learning and leadership within our organization, the greater union of partners and members, and externally. At the end of the day, we worked very hard to try to draw together the many strands of thoughts, ideas and goals, and we came up with the simple (in words if not in action) phrase that will help give our work direction: "Learning - Leading - Convening" (perhaps drawn as a feedback loop diagram). And that was before we saw the corporate ad...

What do you think? Too simple? Too narrow? How do you think learning and leadership go together? We would love to have your feedback!