After 9 months of intense travel, launching my book in over 20 cities in 12 countries, I am pleased to finally be in one place for a whole 3 months. I am delighted to be grounded by the birth of little Rock number two in January 2007. I thought it would be nice to write up the highlights of the journey.

It all started with the launch of Quiet Leadership in Manhattan on April 11. The was followed quickly by a radio tour with interview at around 40 stations across the US.

Next was a talk in Boston at Staples world headquarters (that's me with Lew Stern in Boston), then events in Toronto and Conneticut. Then it was on to Dallas for the ASTD conference, presenting on internal coaching programs.

In May it was on to Brussels, presenting a paper on coaching in the workplace at the International Coach Federation European conference.

I also took the opportunity to visit the house my father lived in during the war, which was quite strange...it hadn't really changed at all. (That's me there on the left).


This was followed by Singapore, delivering a workshop at the Global HR Summit, events at the Australian Chamber of Commerce, a keynote a Shell's regional headquarters, a launch at The Singapore Institute of Management, and a public workshop, plus some radio interviews.

In June one of the highlights was presenting a keynote at Mastercards' world headquarters, near NYC (priceless!) This was followed by a session on internal coaching programs at the biggest HR conference in the world, at SHRM in Washington DC, with over 15,000 HR people there (not all in my room fortunately). Quite an amazing experience to be surrounded by so many HR folks.

Also in June, presenting at NASA's world headquarters was a big thrill. I ran a half day workshop that was simultaneously delivered to 10 other locations, hooked in via a big two way screen system. It was one of the few times I was nervous as a speaker...the connection to wanting to be an astronaut as a young boy was too much.

July saw events in Australia in Sydney and Brisbane, followed by Hong Kong at the Institute of Management. Then a busy week of talks, TV appearances and meetings in South Africa, including a workshop at GIBS university, where I presented for the 2nd time.

In August it was off to New Zealand for a spot on the TV news and several talks, including a fun event to MBA alumni at Victoria University in Wellington. I managed to find time to take my little girl skiing, which she did despite the blizzard (okay it was only next to the car).

September it started to go a little crazy, with the northern hemisphere starting up again. After some more events in Singapore it was on to London to give a talk for the London Coaching Group, and participate in the CIPD coaching in the workplace conference. The UK are very much ahead in the research of coaching in organizations. A highlight for the year was an event at an international business school in Italy, Cimba. They had read the paper in strategy+business and were excited to learn more about leadership & neuroscience. It was a one day deep journey with MBA students, on a mountan top in a converted 800 year old monastery...quite an auspicious event. Next year we are planning a summit on the neuroscience of leadership.

October it went a little crazy. I went back to Sydney for 30 seconds, then on to Washington DC again, this time to give a talk at the IMF, and a coaching industry group. Also I went back to the positive psychology summit, the conference where a few hundred leading thinkers are working on the science of happiness, engagement and peak performance. I had presented there last year, and wanted to stay in touch with the work that was being done. Some great connections were made. I liked Barbara Frederickson's work showing how happiness was making people perform better in several areas.

The other highlight of the year was speaking in Japan. I gave a keynote, translated as I went (pictured left), to around 400 coaches and business people, and ran a workshop on brain-based coaching as well. The workshop was fascinating in that I got to try my ideas on in a totally different culture. I confirmed my suspicion that my thinking about coaching and the brain is universal - that the similarities between our brains across cultures are greater than the differences.



Another big highlight was a half day workshop at MIT, at the Sloan School of business, at their annual 'innovation in leadership' event. Getting 4 days with Jeffrey Schwartz was highly productive, getting to present to 80 high intelligent MBA's was fantastic. We got some great feedback about what was useful, helping us focus a book proposal we are working on.

In the final days of October I was invited to deliver a keynote at a conference in Las Vegas for an interesting leadership development company, Rapport Leadership. The event was an opportunity to do an experiment with 70+ business leaders, and see how some ideas would work. Over 70% of them were able to solve a long term business challenge within 5 minutes of coaching...quite a result. It was also a good chance to connect with Dr Al Ringleb from Cimba, to plan out the NeuroLeadership summit for 2007. Here's a picture of us 'planning' in Las Vegas :)

Last stop on that trip was New York for two weeks, presenting at the Organizational Development Network of NYC event, and meeting with my US team of consultants to work on several projects.


The final leg before the holidays was a quick trip to China to work with a neuroscience lab on some projects involving attention, reflection and insight and the brain. Here is a photo of a pilot experiment we started, taking various readings before and after brief coaching sessions. Am excited to partner with my new friend and colleague Dr Yiyuan Tang, who is a leading neuroscientist in China, and very respected internationally.

Dr Tang wrote an important paper on the cultural differences in brain functioning due to neuroplasticity. That's us in the snow outside his institute in Dalian, in the north of China.



After all that I am looking forward to being in one place for a while. Be good to take time out to rest and be with my family. It's been great to connect with so many people and open my mind to new cultures, new ways of thinking and new insights. 2007 is less tightly packed, though I am looking forward to getting to India, Brazil and China for the first time.

2006 has been a big year for writing.

Check out the feature story co-written with Dr Jeffrey Schwartz, called 'The Neuroscience of Leadership'.

It was published in May 2006 in strategy+business magazine, and I hear it was one of their most popular articles of the year. Jeff and I also ran a webinar, with audio and some visuals, as a follow up to the article, which you can check out here.

Next I wrote an article, also with Jeff, called 'A brain-based approach to coaching', for The International Journal of Coaching in Organizations.

Finally, Jeff and I did some interviews which came out well, one became a cover story at CIO magazine, called 'The new science of change'. We also had some great press about the article in a bunch of places including the Boston Globe and BOSS magazine.