This interview delves into Dick’s journey from working in corporate environments to founding Experience to Lead, a company focused on creating experiential learning opportunities for executives. He highlighted the value of learning through real-world experiences, such as visits to NASA’s Johnson Space Center and Kennedy Space Center, which helped executives expand their leadership perspectives. Dick shared how challenging it was initially to convince executives to engage in these outings, but once they experienced them firsthand, they recognized the transformative value.
Drawing inspiration from his time at Elmira College, Dick explained how his educational background shaped his approach to leadership and learning. His commitment to experiential learning was rooted in the belief that adults learn most effectively when the learning is directly relevant to their personal and professional lives.
In this speech, Dick focuses on the leadership lessons he learned from his time at Elmira College, particularly how it shaped his approach to problem-solving and leadership.
Dick shares a fun story about a time he had to fly to Ireland to solve a business problem at IBM. Three different leaders from marketing, manufacturing, and finance each had their own conflicting views on how to approach the issue.
Despite the differences, the speaker used the concept of “doublethink”—holding two contradictory ideas at once—to help everyone understand each other’s perspective and work together to find a solution. It was a challenging but rewarding experience that showed the power of embracing different viewpoints to solve complex problems.