What I have published below is an edited version of the email I wrote to Jim Kouzes in April of 2019. It is an attempt to thank Jim and Barry for what they and their grad students have given me.
“Jim … please forgive this long email.
Brash of me to write, I know, but you and I have met. It was during my participation in the Leadership Challenge course in the mid-90’s, put on by the Tom Peters Group, if I remember correctly, at the University of Berkeley. That course was not my introduction to your material, at that point I was already familiar with it, through my association and friendship with Dick Hodgson, professor of Organizational Behaviour at the business school of the University of Western Ontario … but it was that personal experience with your teaching that got me started putting your material to work in my company.
That company is PCL Construction, one of the biggest and most successful general contractors in North America. Started in a small town in Saskatchewan in 1906 by Ernest Poole, we are now into our second century and about 4,600 employee-owners strong. Sometime in the 1940’s, Ernie penned Poole’s Rules, his guiding principles, the basis of our corporate culture today (see MTW Blog 4). Poole’s Rules are one of the reasons we have taken to your 5 practices so completely, the alignment is deep and strong. Our corporate vision for everyone adopting your practices and bringing others along is our symbolic tree, with the tag line: “From one tree, a forest” (see ISV Blog 4).
To give you one example of how we grow our trees, we hold a 4-day, intensive, residential leadership development course once a year, have been doing so since 1991. One person from each of our North American districts and divisions is invited to participate, so we number about 32 participants in any particular year. You can imagine that, with 4500+ employees, being chosen as one of 30 annual participants is a bit of an honour. Since 1998, our course has been built on the 5 practices and I can tell you it deeply impacts our audience.
I have wanted to let you know about us espousing your work for quite some time now, but I haven’t ‘felt’ the right opportunity until now. I am now mostly retired and my great friend and colleague Mike Olsson has taken over the reins of leadership development at PCL, and so I have some time to find new ways to spread seeds. If you have the time and the interest, please visit www.LeaderShare.ca It is my newly-minted testament to your and Barry’s work, to all the graduates of PCL’s numerous leadership development programs and to our fellow travellers along the leadership road of life.
Cheers! I will be happy to share more … but only if you wish. No more unsolicited emails … and especially not long ones.
Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash
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