When my first book, From Values To Action, was published in 2011,  I told Andrew Youn and Matt Forti that what they were doing by developing the One Acre Fund (OAF) was the best example of “from values to action” that I had ever seen. I told them that my goal was to give values-based leadership talks and seminars once a month to companies, associations, conferences, universities, not-for-profits, etc., and all of my speaker fees and book sales would be donated to the OAF.

Well, as a result of many Kellogg alumni and friends asking me to give presentations during the past 8 years around the world, instead of one talk per month, I have averaged more than 2 talks per week for a grand total of 965 presentations for the One Acre Fund as of September 15th!

One day when I was meeting with Kellogg Dean Emeritis Don Jacobs shortly before he passed away, he asked me how my talks were going, and I told him it was a “win-win” and that, in fact, it was a trifecta:

  1. I had the opportunity to teach values-based leadership which was clearly needed in the world.
  2. It created the opportunity to highlight Kellogg and the strong emphasis the school places on leadership development.
  3. It provided the framework to raise significant proceeds for the One Acre Fund.

Dean Jacobs’ immediate reaction was, “Harry, this is not a trifecta, it is a ‘4-fecta’ because it energizes you and you clearly love doing it!!”  As usual, Dean Jacobs was correct! I do love doing it! It gives me the opportunity to spend time with Kellogg alumni and their teams and meet many fascinating people around the world — the “ultimate win-win.”

I mentioned in my last blog post about the opportunity I had to spend time in the Dominican Republic with Max Barr (EMBA 111) and several other Kellogg alums.

Well, the fun continued last week. I gave a leadership presentation in Milwaukee at the Physician Realty Trust Summit on Thursday afternoon.  Mark Theine (EMBA106) is a SVP and clearly focused on developing a strong, national VBL organization.

During my talk, an artist drew a “cartoon map” of my key concepts, which I think does a great job of summarizing the key points!

I am going to try to get the original and hang it up in my office!!

Then on Friday I had the opportunity to present at the Young Catholic Professionals Summit in Dallas. Jennifer Baugh founded this organization only a few years ago, and it has already grown to 20 chapters around the country with thousands of members.

I ended the week meeting with some of the folks involved in FOCUS (Fellowship of Catholic University Students),  an amazing organization based in Denver.  I had a chance to spend time with David Trotter, one of the FOCUS leaders.

PS: Well, the work week ended, but that left time over the weekend to participate in one of my FAVORITE occupations — going to a Chicago Cubs game!!! After several weeks of mediocre performance, the Cubbies have won 4 games in a row, and have scored 47 runs in the last 3 games!!! (17, 14, and 16!!!!). We are now only 2 games out of first place with 13 games left to play!!! Go Cubbies!!!

Until next time!