Today was a wonderful day!  I didn’t go into the office, but instead drove up to Kraft’s world headquarters in Northfield (Chicago suburb) and attended a re-connect for the Midwest Regional Leadership Forum (RLF).  This event was much larger than just our class of 2009.  There were people there from as far back as 1997!  Our 2009 group had the most there in attendance, however.  I think that it was pretty close to half.  We are a pretty close group and to have 19 of us there to share the day together was great! 

The event started off last night with a dinner at Kraft’s R&D kitchens.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to make the event.  It sounded pretty fun!  Everyone put on aprons and they cooked their own dinner in a huge room of kitchens…  kind of like high school home ecconomics on steroids.  🙂 

Today’s event was wonderful!  We started off with the CIO of Kraft speaking to us as the keynote speaker.  He had some wonderful things to say that were very inspiring.  His main focus was “don’t be afraid to screw up.”  Fear of making mistakes stops innovation in its tracks. 

We then had some other discussions around innovation (with a group activity), around what we have learned since the last time we met, and we discussed a book by Marshall Goldsmith called “Mojo: How to Get It, How to Keep It, How to Get It Back if You Lose It.”  In this book, Marshall shares the ways in which to get–and keep–our Mojo.  Our professional and personal Mojo is impacted by four key factors: identity (who do you think you are?), achievement (what have you done lately?), reputation (who do other people think you are–and what have you’ve done lately?), and acceptance (what can you change–and when do you need to just “let it go”?). Goldsmith outlines the positive actions leaders must take, with their teams or themselves, to initiate winning streaks and keep them coming.   Mojo is:  that positive spirit–towards what we are doing–now–that starts from the inside–and radiates to the outside. Mojo is at its peak when we are experiencing both happiness and meaning in what we are doing and communicating this experience to the world around us. The Mojo Toolkit provides fourteen practical tools to help you achieve both happiness and meaning–not only in business, but in life.

What a great experience!  I’m looking forward to next year’s Midwest re-connect which will be in Milwaukee at We Energies.