Meaningful encounters

I love university campuses. I love their youthful energy, architecture, inspiration, and sense of possibility.

Today I was in Newcastle to run another leadership workshop for PhD students at the EPSRC Centre for Doctoral Training in Geospatial Systems. As ever it was a diverse cohort displaying passion, deep thinking and maturity — fantastic ambassadors for the profession.

And then there was the catering man who delivered lunch.

Chatting to him in the hallway I found out his name was Lenny, a former prog rock musician now in his sixties. Upon hearing what my workshop was about he asked me who I thought the greatest leader was?

To be honest, I couldn’t name anyone famous off hand. I said that the best leaders I have seen do not always occupy positions of authority — they lead with influence.

Lenny’s eyes lit up.

What followed was a conversation about life, the universe and everything — including detours via philosophy and religion. (It turned out he was religious and I’m not.) We covered a lot of common ground.

In the end we concluded that, when all is said and done, it’s all about relationships. It’s not so much about what you do and why, but who you do it with and how. Whichever way you look at it, it’s important to have values, and to have people in your life that you trust and have each other’s backs.

And so we shook hands and parted ways — Lenny to deliver more lunches, me to run my workshop.

And so I told my students: Nurture your relationships. It’s like triangulation for your life.