conversations
What’s in a conversation? It’s the beginning of new ideas. A sharing of personal stories.
A start of meaningful relationships. This Pulse section called Conversations
highlights opinions, ideas, visions and personal anecdotes of CEOs and leaders from across industries.
Join the conversation. Send your questions and suggestions on leaders you’d like Pulse to profile.
B Y M A E M A Ñ AC A P - J O H N S O N
MASTERS SESSION SPEAKER
SIMON T. BAILEY
B
rilliance, according to this year’s Masters
Session speaker Simon T. Bailey, is your
potential, your insight and your genius.
Brilliance is within all of us, but not all of
us have found our inner brilliance. Discovering and
unleashing it is Bailey’s life-calling, having inspired
many with his transformational insights.
Author of The Vuja de Moment (pronounced vooja-day) – Shift from Average to Brilliant, Bailey shares
the importance of finding your inner genius in
today’s economy and how you can be a catalyst for
brilliance.
PULSE: What is the first step towards unleashing one’s
inner brilliance?
Bailey: Understanding one’s “universal assignment.” Your
universal assignment is the intersection of your ability, gift
[and] talent with the needs and wants in the world. Some
may say it’s your calling; I say it’s your universal assignment.
P: What are the top three characteristics of a brilliant
leader?
B: [A brilliant leader] listens vs. hears; asks vs. tells; and is
fine with horizontal reinvention vs. daydreaming about
vertical ascension.
P: In today’ s economy, why is it critical to unlock one’s
inner genius and potential?
B: The Gallup Organization states that there are approximately 100 million full-time workers in the United States.
Twenty-eight percent of this workforce is engaged, 53 percent
22 PULSE
■
September 2012
is not engaged, and 19 percent is actively disengaged.
Jim Clifton, author of The Coming Jobs War and chairman
of Gallup, says, “The 53 percent of not engaged workers are
just there, killing time with little or no concern about
customers, productivity, profitability, waste, safety, mission
and purpose of teams, or developing customers. They’re
essentially checked out.” Organizations are looking for the 28
percent who are releasing their inner genius and potential to
influence the 53 percent who are not engaged.
P: What hampers leaders from finding and releasing
their own and their teams’ brilliance?
B: Agenda, competing priorities, lack of self-confidence,
playing it safe [attitude], maintaining the status quo, and [lack
of] vision.
(CONTINUED ON PAGE 24)