Today, offers a great leadership lineup including Dr. Steve Sample, Tim Sanders, and Marcus Buckingham. All of these speakers come more with a corporate or academic world view on leadership. You might recognize the names, they are all known and well read authors. To kick it off, Hybels lead an interview session with Dr. Sample. This session was the first interview of the conference so I was concerned at first, but after it got going it was seamless. The 63 year old President of University of Southern California was truly a stand out being the only speaker so far with a suit and tie. However, the formal attire was quickly overcome with his witty nature, quick humor and amazingly brilliant mind. Hybels interview was focused on Sample's best selling book, The Contrarian's Guide to Leadership, the same book that Hybels made a mandatory read for his Mgt. Team. Sample was a wealth of knowledge, and a pleasure to listen to. Hybels drew out some major points in his book including, Thinking Gray, Thinking Free, Artful Listening, Reading Wise, Decision Making and Hiring/Firing. My take away from this session was... Finish reading his book! One of the best closers of the conference was when Dr. Sample informed us that he had been a Episcopal for 50 years, and a Christian for 20!

Conference Session 6, Tim Sanders, Leadership Coach for Yahoo! Inc. Tim, wow, what do I say? First, Tim was not what I was expecting, he was another suit (possibly Armani or Boss), a little flashy and a whole lot of stage movement. Because Tim was not what I was expecting (totally my fault), it took me a little while to engage. However, about 7 min. into his talk I was not only engaged, I was completely captivated by his content. Tim's talk, entitled The Lovecat Way, was very motivational, in your face, and hard hitting. The core take home from his talk was... Live the abundant life. Tim's talk was so engaging that it did purchase his book, Love is the Killer App.

Session 7, Marcus Buckingham, one of my favorite authors, is best know for: First, Break all the Rules and Now, Discover your Strengths. Marcus, a 17 year vet with Gallup came prepared with a wealth of data and statistics. The first half of his presentation was power point driven and loaded with more data references then the 9/11 commission report. Frankly, I really enjoy reading Marcus books, but was not real impressed with his talk. Marcus paced back and forth nervously across the stage and gave a lot of good information, but frankly, it was too much info. Maybe my expectations were to high, I don't know? However I still highly recommend both of his books, as well as his new book coming out, The One Thing You Need to Know. For a sneak peak of his new book check out http://www.willowcreek.com/buckingham. The take home Marcus was... An employee that is not engaged is like "son dials in the shade"-Ben Franklin.