How to Manage Changes and Avoid Crisis

The conference under the title “All the Secrets of Harmonic Leadership“ organized on the occasion of the publication of the latest book written by Velimir Srića, full professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, and an author of book series that address modern leadership, gathered many interesting speakers. Gordana Kovačević, President of Ericsson Nikola Tesla, Branko Roglić, the Owner of Orbico, Adrian Ježina, Vipnet Chief Technology Officer and Board Memeber, Slavko Vidović, Director of Infodom, Bruno Filipi, the Head of Coca Cola South Pacific and Miha Žerko, SRC’s Chairman of the Board participated in the panel discussion, moderated by the author.

The book written by professor Srića, “All the Secrets of Harmonic Leadership – How to Manage Changes and Avoid Crisis“ was recently published in Croatia, and its starting point is a book on harmonic leadership, published last year in New York. As the author emphasizes that the motivation for writing this book was the impression that we live in a world where people cares less and less about others, and the crises is visible in every society segment. This motivated the author to reflect on change management and leadership, because their aim is to create harmony, as he states:“ in your mind, in your team, in your organization, on the market, in the Parliament and within the political party, in the country, on the continent and worldwide.“ Inspired by the book's thesis, the speakers briefly presented their life journey and talked about their own management experiences, and afterwards an interesting discussion followed, titled „The Clinic of Harmonic Leadership“ during which the audience had the chance to ask questions.  Each of the invited panelists briefly shared some of their own experiences with the audience, regarding the challenges of harmonic leadership. No matter how different their stories were, considering their development journey; they all had one thing in common, which can be summed up in a simple conclusion: they all had the necessary passion, perseverance and a vision of their dream, in order to be able to make the dream come true. And of course, they all gathered people and teams, creating a winning company culture that enabled them to succeed.
 
By giving a speech and replying the attendees' numerous questions, the President of Ericsson Nikola Tesla sent out powerful messages which, judging by the audience interest and comments must have fallen on fertile ground. She highlighted the need of continuous transformation, lifelong learning, honest communication and respecting fundamental values as prerequisites of quality and innovative corporative culture. She reflected on how challenging this can be in these dynamic and demanding times by saying: “The pace of change will never be as slow as it is nowadays, and present way of working will not respond to the ways of working in the future. It is important to know to use profit for new development that will ensure us a future. To do this, one needs to be a visionary and be able to turn dreams into reality. In order to implement a vision, an honest relationship between the employees and the management must exist. If there is an insufficient amount of specific knowledge in the organization, it should be identified and acquired in time.“ Regarding the organizational culture, she highlighted that the leaders have the biggest responsibility in creating organization culture. “We should all start by first assessing ourselves, and always think about what we could do better in our daily work. This requires passion. The success depends on whether you and your teams live the company's vision and mission. Our experts are proud of the fact that they implement solutions in various Networked Society segments that make the daily life of citizens easier and enable a more efficient work for business entities and public institutions and by implementing our products and solutions, we are positively impacting the society, we are creating a better world, and we are being socially responsible.“ 

The speeches given by the company leaders all had one thing in common - the need for continuous transformation, believing in people and sharing responsibilities, as well as high ethical values. The conference closing remark, together with sending out positive messages, was expressing the hope that there will be more leadership of this kind, and that the society will move in the direction of harmonic leadership that will bring prosperity for all.  
 
Communications Ericsson Nikola Tesla