By Dr Marcele De Sanctis

22 November 2013

Marcele De Sanctis, Principal Consultant and Terry Coyne, Head of Leadership Assessment hosted their Inaugural Spring Boardroom Lunch on Friday 22 November.

Terry recently joined Oppeus International to lead the Leadership Assessment practice in addition to his role as Director for the Melbourne-based Centre for Leadership Advantage. Terry co-founded Coyne Didsbury Pty Ltd, later acquired by Personnel Decisions International (PDI), which became Australia’s leading psychometric assessment and career development coaching consultancy under Terry’s leadership.

Together, Marcele and Terry welcomed Dr. Paddy Miller as their special guest speaker, who shared his ideas on “Leadership and Innovation”. Paddy is a global leader and Professor in business innovation based in Barcelona, Spain at IESE Business School (University of Navarra) one of the Europe’s premium business schools. He is also co-author of a new book “Innovation as Usual” (Harvard Business School Press, 2013) which focuses on the leadership of innovation in organisation. He has taught on many leadership and general management courses on the senior executive programmes at IESE as well as at Harvard Business School, MIT and the Darden School in Virginia. During 2008 he was visiting faculty at Columbia Business School. He has also authored and co-authored several books.

In this session, Paddy provided a thought-provoking and entertaining overview of the concept of ‘Innovation Architects’, defined as leaders who create the space in which innovation occurs. He cited numerous examples of organisations that have succeeded in capitalising on new ideas and opportunities because they have been led by people that are not necessarily innovative themselves, but who create the environment and culture in an organisation where others can be creative and ideas can flourish. The content of Paddy’s presentation has important implications for organisations seeking to gain competitive advantage through both incremental and ‘game changing’ innovation.

The Spring Boardroom Lunch is the first in a series of seasonal events that Oppeus International will host, focusing on thought leadership and emerging trends in talent and leadership assessment, development and management.

Our next Boardroom lunch for the Summer series will be held in late February and will again provide a forum for thought leadership around topical areas of leadership and assessment.