As part of the Leadership 4 Growth program that Cathal is undertaking with Enterprise Ireland there was a two day seminar organised with two leading lecturers from The Stanford Graduate School of Business who gave talks to company management.
While Cathal went gallivanting in Brasil, Brian, Astrid, Gillian and I attended. Initially we were a little sceptical as the topics of the talks had daunting titles such as ‘Identifying and Evaluating Strategic Alignment’…. Bugs Bunny it wasn’t.
However the speaker Bill Barnett was well used to keeping the room entertained and informed and we found the talk inspiring and educational.
The location for the talk was the impressive conference rooms at Croke Park. We took advantage at lunchtime and I snuck off to finally realise my dream of running down the tunnel & onto the pitch!
Running down the tunnel in Croke Park!
We all had a good look around before the groundsmen came along and shooed us off the pitch as we shouldn’t have been there in the first place!
Brian Gilmore on the pitch
Astrid & Gillian more imperssed with their blackberries than the stadium!
The second day involved other mouth watering topics such as ‘Culture as competitive (dis) advantage’ and the ‘Ambidextrous Organization’. But the second speaker Charles O’Reilly was equally excellent and the whole team found the two day event very helpful and useful. Now we all know the meaning of these weird business phrases like ‘Culture eats Strategy for breakfast!’ that Cathal throws at us at management meetings!
