What I learnt about Charisma from the CEO of a 500 million Company
I had the wonderful opportunity to conduct a workshop for the C-Suite leaders and Country heads of Oriental Merchant at Melbourne; a $496 million revenue company whose business span from Australia to Europe and UK.
CEO Bernard Yiu shared how the company grew from its humble beginning of starting from having their office in a container in the 1970s to a vision of hitting over 1 billion in 5 years’ time. What an exciting vision.
He communicated the importance of HR capital and retention of talent within the organization. Without these, it would not be possible for Oriental Merchant to achieve an annual revenue of $496 million.
Through his many years in the business world, he observed, reflected and learned what are some of the qualities of a great leader and what charisma means. Bernard defined Charisma as having 2 virtues: Accommodating and Forgiveness.
Forgiveness enables people to be brave to take actions, knowing that they are given the capacity and space to make mistakes as they strive to achieve their KPI.
The word accommodate is from the Latin root word accommodate meaning “made fitting.” Whether it refers to changing something to suit someone’s wishes or providing someone with something he needs; i.e. make (one thing) compatible with (another).
In the world of DISC profiling for personal and team development, the word accommodate would have a similar meaning as adaptation. In order to build rapport and strong teams, it is important to adapt your communication style to the other person’s style.
For example, someone who is direct and straight to the point would like his colleague to communicate to him in a direct and up-front manner rather than beating around the bush.
At Melbourne, the participants learned how the different DISC styles are displayed through their behaviors, the words they use and more importantly, how to adapt their DISC styles to enhance team communication and effectiveness.
At the end of the day, the participants shared their reflections, ranging from the importance of understanding self and others through the DISC profiling tool, knowing what they needed to do to enhance their communication style in relating to others as well as everyone is different and they can tap on each other strengths.
I look forward to the next training @ Melbourne in 2020.
Click on the link below to learn more about DISC