Recently the international pop artist Mika (www.mikasounds.com) expressed his talent in an markedly unusual way at the Teatro Sociale of Como (Italy) within a full house of 600 people, name of the show: “Sinfonia pop”. A one hour show in which the Lebanese born British by adoption, globetrotter, multilingual pop star, dared to do something he had been wanting to express for a long time: put his pop talent and his winning pop repertoire to challenge by expressing it live thorough the tunes and a full symphonic orchestra.
As he stated, this was a show in which he was not at all the protagonist, he was simply a member of the team guided by the orchestra Maestro. Through the elegant free flowing entertaining show, Mika sheer talent got exponentially expressed and all of this was evidently fuelled by the fun he was having in performing.
Mika dared to take his talent in a territory he has always fond of yet quite far from his roots and the roots of its globally successful production. His real talent has not been the performance in itself rather the daring of to compromise it all within an uncharted territory he had wanted to explore to chase a dream.
Daring to put everything at risk, everything you have conquered and won, daring to try something new counting upon your experience and strengths; throw it all into something quite risky hardly tried before.
How many of us are willing to challenge our talent, our strengths within uncharted, unfamiliar, potentially dangerous territories? Our talent can strengthen and blossom from this or it can boom.
Reality is that talent not challenged within uncharted territories, as done by Mika, might not be (should not be, cannot be) called talent at all.
The conference I moderated at the University of Pisa on the topic International business development. Is there a common enlightening and empowering trait? featured interaction among the International MBA students and a panel of four entrepreneurs and managers active on the global market in different fields (mechanical industrial, fashion, new technologies applied to health management and improvement, services for patent and innovation development) from the start-up to the major corporation.
Innovation. Teamwork. Talent.
Three have been the common traits emerging strongly from the debate: innovation, teamwork, talent. All of them related to the overall need to create value in the perception of the customer, and the customers are not all alike even within the same sector.
Innovation. It is not just fashionable or trendy, it is a must demanded by a market in continuos dynamic evolution and increasinglydemanding from several points of view. Innovate to personalise to the customer needs while increasing efficiency and managing to slow down a progressive, almost inevitable, shrinking of operational margins almost across all of the sectors.
Teamwork.It is increasingly the essential leverage to performance. Both at the technical or managerial level, without the ability to lead stimulating actual teamwork turns into an ineffective and dangerous for survival waste of resources.
Talent. Creating value through innovation and teamwork nowadays depend on talent. The ability to express top level performance in a consistent way. To note that within the debate we have had different perspectives on talent selecting and managing: is it better to have top talented people with low interpersonal skills (even nasty) or talented-tending-to-average people with effective interpersonal skills? Some have had no doubt: it is part of the job description of a manager to handle ‘nasty’ talent and make it effective even within teamwork. Some have stated that in any case the development and focus on international skills for anybody is paramount.
The interaction among professionals and the MBA participants has been strong, stimulated by all of this. Overall a concept has been clear: international markets are changing and shifting at an increasingly speed. There is the need to consistently analyse where is the best place, the best contexts, where to develop production, sales markets, financing projects.
The University of Pisa International Master in Business Administration has just reached the VI edition (http://mba.master.unipi.it/programme) and its developing more and more one of its key characteristics: the high level of diversity that becomes dynamically integrated within the program itself.
2015 University of Pisa International MBA
Diversity from several points of view: culture (all continents have been represented throughout the six editions – about twenty different nationalities this edition) as well as academic and professional backgrounds (all of the key areas of organisational development are represented with the majority of the participants having years of work experience, at this link some key statics http://mba.master.unipi.it/alumni_and_careers ) belonging to global entrepreneurial, SME and corporate contexts.
The program has the characteristics of an Executive International MBA yet it is intensive full time and completed in one year time in order to enable participants to progress rapidly within their global careers.
We are in the process of powering up the Corporate Network linked to the MBA that is already quite extensive http://mba.master.unipi.it/corporate-network/career_network and continuing to formally and purposefully develop an Alumni Association. This to empower even more an extensive network of contacts that the MBA has generated among not only participants (by now around 150 alumni – on purpose classes are kept below the 30 participants threshold per edition) but also reaching out to the extensive international network of professors, individual professionals, entrepreneurs, managers that have been enriching the actual and consistent connections of this hands-on MBA with the managerial, economic and social dynamics of the ‘real world’.
It is has been a pleasure for me to have had the opportunity to participate dynamically to the development of the program since the very first edition. Today I focus on Talent Identification and Development of the participants related to the progression of their careers and I coordinate the Business Game that is representing a concrete fresh entrepreneurial challenge integrating concretely the overall know-how and experiences developed throughout the MBA itself.
2015 MBA participants, we will enjoy the development path together.
All of you interested to connect and enrich this unique context of learning and global know-how development feel free to contact me riccardo@synergypathways.net , I will be happy to dialogue with you regarding the ways we can contribute together to the development of this unique project.
Ayrton Senna passed away dramatically 20 years ago in Imola during a tragic Formula 1 Grand Prix weekend during which another driver died: Roland Ratzenberger. Senna has been the global Number 1 start in Motorsport: venerated in his home country, Brasil; loved by thousands of fans (many of which not even F1 fond of racing) in Italy, Japan and many other countries around the globe.
Ayrton Senna (1960 – 1994)
No doubt he had an incredible talent, no doubt he had an unique personality and intensity of focus in whatever endeavour he was involved into. Improvement of his talent and self-improvement overall were his constant object of reflection, awareness and action.
He has left a legacy on all of this well beyond the staggering track records. This is the legacy to reflect upon on two perspectives: his philosophy of life; the entrepreneurial perspective he developed throughout his own career.
Constant focus on talent improvement and self-improvement (some of his life philosophy quotes):
“I continuously go further and further learning about my own limitations, my body limitation, psychological limitations. It’s a way of life for me.” “I have no idols. I admire work, dedication and competence.” “Being second is to be the first of the ones who lose.” “And so you touch this limit, something happens and you suddenly can go a little bit further. With your mind power, your determination, your instinct, and the experience as well, you can fly very high.” “I am not designed to come second or third. I am designed to win.” “These things bring you to reality as to how fragile you are; at the same moment you are doing something that nobody else is able to do. The same moment that you are seen as the best, the fastest and somebody that cannot be touched, you are enormously fragile.” “The danger sensation is exciting. The challenge is to find new dangers.” “Racing, competing, it’s in my blood. It’s part of me, it’s part of my life; I have been doing it all my life and it stands out above everything else.” “If you have God on your side, everything becomes clear.” John Bisignano: “There’s only one word that describes Ayrton’s style, and that is: fast. He would take the car beyond it’s design capabilities. He would brake later, fly into these corners where the car was just over the edge, and somehow, he could dance and dance with that car, to where it stayed on track.”
Awareness and focus on self-entrepreneurship
1) “With not afterward promotion your victories are almost worthless”. He was always aware of the importance of communication, concrete public relations and the need to have an input on them personally to ensure that they matched the message he wanted to share.
2) He always negotiated by himself on his contracts (just with the help of a trusted accountant for the book keeping) with tough team owners or sponsor managers. Always aware of the value of his brand within a specific context.
3) Before the dramatic end of his career and his life he had already implemented business plans to progressively import top brands products and services from Europe and the USA to Brasil.
4) He understood that self-entrepreneurship goes well beyond making money simply for oneself “Wealthy men can’t live in an island that is encircled by poverty. We all breathe the same air. We must give a chance to everyone, at least a basic chance.” He did it in a channeled entrepreneurial way in many area of Brasil. To develop long lasting results, he invested heavily on children’s future and opportunities for self-improvement.
Overall the essence of his legacy is about a clear focus on improvement: talent, self awareness and development, professional approach to any endeavour at hand.
