We started 2011 with a magnificent hike through Verbier in the Swiss Alps. We got there by the fantastic Swiss public transportation system with the second to last segment on the St Bernard Express and the final segment on a Gondola: at every stage, we were surrounded by beauty!  Shortly after I was honored to learn I was chosen as one of the 100 Top Thought Leaders in Trustworthy Business Behavior.  Really nice personal and professional start to a new year.  Wishing you the best in this year too!

With the ending of 2010 making way for the start of a new beginning in 2011, I see as always a strong connection between my personal and professional life. While I work on my IMD presentation “Highly Relational Engagement of Stakeholders is critical for Value Creation and Competitiveness: Bridging Leaders as Key Catalyists” and I am sending holiday season missives around the world, I am aware of all the many ways I continue to sustain connections.  Today’s entry simply is to say how much I value being connected with you!

As we approach Thanksgiving, I have so much to be grateful for.  As I think about family and friends throughout the world, I am touched by how warmly we have been welcomed by so many in our village of Lutry, colleagues at IMD in Lausanne, and in the larger region of Lake Geneva and the Jura Alps.  Last weekend we went to a house warming party for Nane and Kofi Annan where we saw old friends and met new ones.  We had dinner with our neighbors Christiane and Jacques-Andre Conne civic leaders in our community.   This weekend, we spent a wonderful day with the entire extended family – Janine and Rancois Foucher, Regine, Olivier, Camille, Estelle and Clement Rouge, Marine, Tessa, Nathalie and Phillipe Pilet – from whom we are renting our apartmentat at... more

I’m finding my niche, seven weeks into Executive-in-Residence at IMD: master bridge-builder; a role that has applicability in much of the executive education knowledge exchange being done here.  I‘ve begun to focus on why businesses should engage with non-market, non-traditional stakeholders for current brand value as a basis for long term value creation with Paul Strebel who leads the High Performance Boards program.  I’ll continue to develop this further with Didier Cossin who next year will take over this program.  I’m writing about creating and sustaining mutually beneficial cross-sector partnerships to support an exciting body of research by Tom Malnight and Kees van der Graaf.  And I’m finding my stride in my local village where the butcher, baker, winemaker and most... more

In my first week as Executive-in-Residence at IMD I observed and commented on executive education programs.  One was led by Dan Denison whose focus includes organizational culture, leadership and the impact they have on performance and effectiveness, and Tom Malnight whose focus includes global strategy, evolutionary organizational change, internal growth and renewal.  They guided participating executives through exercises designed to help them effectively tackle a changing and uncertain future.  Another group of executives interacted with James Henderson  whose focus includes helping companies achieve and sustain their competitive advantage, through a comparable exercise in developing strategies under times of uncertainty.  And in my first gathering of faculty and senior staff with IMD president Dominique Turpin we as an internal team explored many of... more

As I am about to move to another continent, I’ve found two sets of activities in America profoundly disturbing.   First, the condemnation of a proposed Muslim multi-cultural center several blocks away from Ground Zero ; second, advocates for repealing the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution enacted in 1878 to grant citizenship to Africans who had been brought to America as slaves.   I personally know and deeply admire the couple who have been planning the center for close to a decade: Daisy Khan  and Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, who are and have been for decades totally devoted to sharing a progressive interpretation of Islam – promoting women’s rights, condemning violence and advocating tolerance – within the Muslim community globally and building bridges with people... more

In these final weeks before relocating to Switzerland for up to two years, I’ve been feted by US-based friends and colleagues before departing.  And my Geneva-based as well as wider circle of European friends are planning welcome celebrations  for me upon arrival.  In recent years as many I’ve loved and admired have moved on, I’ve come to have an ever deeping appreciation for treasuring each moment I get to spend with those I cherish.  So, I’ll stay connected wherever I live/work.  My next post may come from Lausanne: voyez-vous bientôt; tout a l’heure!

I gave the closing remarks, My Leadership Journey, at an IMD program Strategies for Leadership (SL) led by Professor Ginka Toegel.  31 women executives from 20 countries participated in SL over four days during which I was a coach.  SL focused on authentic leadership and how executives must learn to balance their own unique personality qualities with certain attributes critical to be perceived as a strong leader.  Since Toegel started the program focused on natural preferences versus a fuller range of possible behaviors, with special emphasis on self-awareness of one’s innate strengths and weaknesses, I chose to delve into the latter.  I shared how knowing yourself fully – standing confidently in the power of glorious capacities while simultaneously not being... more

I was a speaker for the first class of the Women’s Media Center (WMC) 2010 Progressive Women’s Voices training, one of many WMC initiatives to advance its goal of Making Women Visible and Powerful in The Media.  I emphasized how much we not only must advocate for our own authority as women leaders but that we also have a responsibility to help promote other women to break down barriers that still exist for them to reach the top rungs of leadership.  In two weeks when I will be a coach for 30 women corporate executives from around the world at an IMD Strategic Leadership module, my message will be similar.  WMC had selected 10 women out of almost 200 applicants... more