BUILD A BETTER FUTURE A conversation with Finance Indaba Africa 2017 keynote Stan Slap
How to achieve the GREAT thing Pulling off big projects is exhilarating, exponentially growing your profits is awesome, but are you achieving the GREAT thing? Are you building a better future? We spoke with Stan Slap, the world’s foremost thought leader on culture and leadership, who will be opening the Finance Indaba Africa on 12 October 2017.
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While making profits, delivering on big projects, and improving the share price of a company are all good things, leaving a legacy impact on the lives of the human beings that helped you to achieve those good things is a great thing,” says Stan, who was immediately captivated by this year’s Finance Indaba theme ‘Build a better future’ and agreed to be the keynote for Africa’s big-
Stan Slap, speaker at Finance Indaba Africa 2017 44
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gest conference and expo for finance professionals. The culture guru from California is travelling to South Africa with the support of Finance Indaba exhibitor ClarkHouse Human Capital and its inspirational founding MD, Roy Clark. Stan has a powerful message and a bag full of good, sometimes unusual, ideas to discuss with finance professionals during the event in the Sandton Convention Centre. “You don’t have to give up the very good things to get the great thing, but you have to want the great thing − and that’s what makes a top-notch professional. They WANT the great thing.” Leaders and ambitious professionals should know that they are the chief cultural officers, argues Stan, who has built a unique career advising the planet’s big corporates about their people and their culture, winning raving endorsements from global executives from companies like Apple, Microsoft, Intel, Deloitte, and Vodafone.
Eye on culture “True leaders may delegate some of the functions, and that’s understandable in a large enterprise, but they are never that far away from keeping an eye on the culture,” says Stan. “That is because the performance of leaders is ultimately judged by their legacy. It is not what happens while they’re at the company that is most valuable but rather, whether their impact on the company is sustainable after they have left.” During what is expected to be a knockout presentation at the Finance Indaba, the corporate strategist from the United States will share more of his insights on GREATNESS and a ‘people first’ approach with the 5,000 finance professionals who are expected to attend, many of them chartered accountants and other top professionals who are shaping the future of the country. For this interview, Stan took the time to explain the concept of culture as a living organism – a very powerful one.