Todd Landman Academic Magician
March 29, 2017Todd Landman

Crafting Confidence in a Challenging World

On the eve of the Prime Minister sending the letter that invokes Article 50 to the Council of the European Union, I had the good fortune of spending time in the City of London with current students, alumni, and staff of the University of Nottingham for a networking event. Entitled 'Nottingham in the City' we welcomed over 100 guests to the magnificent offices of Berenberg for an evening of talks and mutually beneficial introductions.

My own role was to welcome our guests on behalf of the University and to deliver a short lecture on leadership and 'knowing people'. I was delighted to revisit many of the themes that I have developed in the past on 'crafting confidence' in young people and using analytical frameworks developed at Glowinkowski International.

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I talked primarily about how all organisations are characterised by the complex interactions between people's underlying predispositions, behaviours, and styles of leadership and engagement, which in turn relate to the climate of the organisation and ultimately its performance. These insights were illustrated through my own version of 'cerebral prestidigitation' (or mind magic) working with members of the audience. I predicted a choice of one guest simply by knowing her name (Darinka), her place of birth (Macedonia) and what she had for breakfast (an omelette). I then asked four volunteers to imagine in their minds the four different types of leadership engagement that we had been discussing and I divined their thoughts with 100% accuracy.

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But for me, the real exciting part of the evening was learning how these young people, full of enthusiasm, are embracing the change that they see all around them. I met graduates of law, economics, business, politics, psychology and sociology, all of whom valued not only the core content of what they studied, but the many soft skills that have made them adaptable to the challenging work environments in which they find themselves. Many had started out in one direction and then learned where their real interests were and changed course accordingly.

There evening also included an inspiring talk from business entrepreneur Claire Bicknell from Catena Business Networking, who presented a compelling vision of how company to company and person to person networking benefits all that engage in such interactions. She is growing her business from its base in Nottingham to the whole of the UK with an ever increasing network of companies, organisations, individuals and events.

The deep history of the City was with is last night (Berenberg dates from 1590), but it was combined with youthful and hopeful vigour, which I hope will carry us through the uncharted waters of BREXIT and that real opportunities will be seized in these turbulent times.

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