Energy, Leadership, and Innovation: How to Create Continuous Innovation (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798186486381)

Energy, Leadership, and Innovation is no ordinary management book. It is the fruit of a lifetime of learning - not only in classrooms, lecture halls and libraries, but above all in the messy, instructive reality of life itself.

Gerard Vossen takes the reader on a personal journey that began in an ordinary working-class family, where his mother once aptly described him as "a little different", and which led him - by way of pre- vocational secondary education and against all expectations - to a university degree. It is the story of a restless, curious mind that refused to accept the world as it was presented to him.

The most important lessons, however, were not learned at school. They came from the playground, where he discovered the joy of teaching; from the trading floor, where he came to know the emptiness of wealth without meaning; from the kitchen tables of elderly widows, who taught him that simplicity is the highest form of sophistication; from the boardroom, where he discovered that leadership is not a matter of authority but of service; and, finally, from his father's deathbed, which left him with the most fundamental lesson of all: that time is precious and finite.

The Core Message
The central insight of this book is as simple as it is far-reaching: positive energy is the foundation of a good life, and it arises from the multiplication and balance of morality, creativity and communication. What Vossen discovered in a classroom full of children - why one is happy and another less so - proved to be the very same principle that explains effectiveness in professionals, meaning in organisations and justice in societies.
This insight is captured in four practical frameworks, forged in real-world experience:

• E = mc - Energy equals morality times creativity times communication. When these three forces are in balance and reinforce one another, energy flows in abundance.
• Be WISE - Be a World citizen, Intelligent, Strong and Empathetic: the four qualities that shape leadership which builds trust and allows people to flourish.
• KISS CLIS - Keep It Super Simple: Connect, Learn, Innovate, Share. The operational model for continuous innovation.

• Part I lays the foundations: energy, knowledge, leadership and innovation.
• Part II applies these across four levels: the personal, the professional, the organisational and the national.
• Part III brings everything together in the synergy that emerges when all these forces are aligned.