One of the leading ‘business and self empowerment’ summits in the world, Pendulum Dublin’s fourth annual event took place last week and the 2468 Team were there for each of the two days.
Here are our key takeaways – with a workplace and employee experience slant.
1. RESILIENCE IN FAILURE
Bear Grylls opened Day Two and shared his now trademark message about survival – and success, in the wild but translatable to business. His four pillars for success included failure and fear; each of these are an essential part of success. The fire or passion to succeed made up a third, while faith – in self and in team and relationships completed the quartet. Bear’s stories come from the military, from Everest summit and from wilderness survival, but have a real relevance to business people.
2. PERMISSION TO BE THE BEST VERSION OF YOURSELF
Dame Kelly Holmes, Olympic gold medalist and army Colonel demonstrated through her life story that we should never quell our drive to succeed. Passion and self-belief saw her achieve life goals and she spoke about keeping focus, and resisting any urge to apologise for ambition, or to stifle the drive to be the best we can be.
3. ETHICS AND CULTURE TO STEER THE RIGHT CHOICES
This talk came from the former Enron CFO Andy Fastow. Fastow was jailed for his part in the corporate fraud committed at Enron, which bankrupted the company and damaged thousands of lives and livelihoods. The key takeaway from this speaker was that in business today there are increasing amounts of ‘grey area’ where rules are blurred, are don’t exist. What matters here is a culture which emphasizes the importance the spirit, not the letter of the law or rule.
4. TRUST MAKES BUSINESS SENSE
Stephen MR Covey spoke about the importance of trust. Leaders need to give trust to get trust. When expectations are clear, and teams are given space to collaborate and develop, employees can perform at a higher level. High performance teams work on trust, accountability and relationships.
5. PRIORITISE RELATIONSHIPS
Bear Grylls and Sir Alan Sugar agreed on the importance of prioritising relationships. It’s important in allowing employees to draw their line between work and personal priorities and sticking to it. But it’s important in the workplace too, where a culture of collaboration built on trust facilitates employees in asking for help, and using skills around them to achieve greater success and progress for the organisation.
