London Recap | The Strength of Connection

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Opening Remarks

I have loved visiting Brussels, Paris, Madrid, Stockholm, Dublin, Amsterdam, Belfast, Zurich, Copenhagen, you get the point. Traveling to Europe has been a meaningful growth experience for me. Culture, business, food, language, getting out of my little box and seeing a bigger world has meant so much. Makes me realize how small each of us really is in this world, and that there are so many different ways to do things. The value of diversity with everything is so evident when you travel. So many cities and countries are great, but London is different. London just feels like the center of the rest of the world beyond the US and Europe. It really isn’t of course as there are multiple large hubs for travel and destinations with diverse collections of people, but it feels that way based on my experience. 

The diversity in so many ways, the energy, the opportunity, and the history make it a great place to visit. Great to be back in London and making new connections with the potential to grow into meaningful relationships through business partnership. And so great to see a few I already knew.

The Power of Community

The power of community is such a challenging force to build, yet brings so much joy, energy, and fulfillment. Artificially crafting community is an even bigger hurdle, but if you can collect a group that truly wants to spend time with each other in a productive and positive way, you’re on to something. It seems to stem from a unique value add and shared interests that just isn’t anywhere else in the same form, and that makes it something people of shared interest want to be a part of. From podcasts, to a collection of founders/entrepreneurs, to professional disciplines, I have seen communities bring power to the group and to individuals.

What I Learned in London

I hosted two get together while in for a couple days. They were both a great experience in two very different ways:

1. Fractional Executive Meet-up with Jasper Consultancy- I had 4 out of about 12 show up for the event, which has actually been about average for the fractional events. Few show for the events in person thus far. The positive - the people that did make it were great! Such a fun group and I look forward to following their journey and hopefully finding opportunities to work together at some point.

2. Leaders of London Dinner - I assembled a group of people for some fun conversation, great food and drink. This group trusted an American they didn’t know, and this group was a lot of fun! Diverse backgrounds, interesting perspectives, and real connections made. I appreciate the opportunity to spend time with everyone and I am looking forward to staying in touch. Thank you all for making it great evening!
   
   I heard of this idea from Daniel Priestley on The Diary Of A CEO and thought it was amazing - getting interesting people together for dinner and learning about their story. So why not in London?!
   
   One of the best thoughts shared at the dinner that resonates with me as a great reminder:

It comes down to the long game…working with eventual friends, close colleagues, customers, or business partners, versus getting what you can from people for immediate gain. There is a time and a place for different ways to look at things of course, but I love the big picture, strategic, and relationship-based approach, versus transactional short-term thinking.

This visit to London proved a lot more to me than most other trips - it showed me the value of continuing to push myself beyond what I know or have comfort in, and the energy from making new connections to find that core group that value what I bring and want to find ways to partner when the opportunities present themselves. And the joy I get from learning from others, hearing their story, and seeing how I can help them in some small way. I learned a lot from this visit.

Operations Nation

This group is really special and a high quality group. I am fortunate to have joined and met them all. I look forward to many years of collaboration and contributing however I can. Here are a few thoughts from cONference 2024:

Important Takeaways/Reminders

1. Perceived opportunity varies widely based on origin, culture, and upbringing
   Culture, while often understood as more of the touch and feel side, and discounted by many, is behind everything we do in business in the US. Culture is the under layer impacting people, operations, legal, finance, and tech innovation, work, collaboration, and functional norms.

2. Culture is rooted in everything. Daniel Glazer put it well- pattern-matching and mission and money are there for a reason.

3. So many reminders to disrupt yourself individually and organizationally, before markets, competitors, tech, or trends do it for you.

4. Scaling, through all aspects of the business requires a level of perspective and open mind to set yourself up to capitalize on opportunity. Scaling one area of your firm, will leave others behind.

Additional Thoughts

• Recognizing the Peace Time vs. War Time as an operator (Jonathan Bullock)

• Every single operations leader looked at their digital OS differently, and they were all a WIP

• Listen to customers, they give you the answers if you don’t think you’re too good to listen

• “Out founder, your founder” by repeating their mantra more than them, and do other things to mix it up within the org with your teams and founder, avoid stale work. A really unique perspective on managing up. (Sharath Jeevan)

• Stop chasing, keep attracting - the magnet is stronger than the hammer over time with sustainable effort

A few takeaways

One area I continue to be reminded: Finding your tribe is a continuous process of seeing who you trust, who you can lean on, who you listen to, and who follows you. 

Assumptions and negative thoughts block your growth. It’s important to fight through them with vigor to enable your path forward. 

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Hopefully, this added a little value to your business or leadership journey. Thank you for reading. If you think this may help someone else, please repost ♻️ or share. Thanks for being here. 🌍🏔️.

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