Christine Day Archives

September 17 2016

Discovery Series – Gaining power and influence

ftyang Archive, Business Seminar Business Seminar, Christine Day, Leaders of Tomorrow, The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade, Women's Leadership Circle 0

Date: September 8, 2016

Name: Discovery Series – Gaining power and influence

Presenter: Christine Day

Many leaders are eager to have power and influence; however, many of them have failed to sustain them. The Greater Vancouver Board of Trade invites Christine Day, the CEO of Luvo, to discuss the true meaning of power and influence. In this presentation, Christine Day will share her leadership experience. Moreover, leaders will learn different types of power and influence. Leaders will be able to apply her knowledge and insight to their current career.

Christine Day is the CEO of Luvo. Before Luvo, she was the CEO of Lululemon Athletica. Christine Day has many board director experience, including REI Sleep Number by Select Comfort, and the Greater Vancouver Board of Trade. In addition, she was also a Senior Vice President of Starbucks in Asia Pacific. Her achievements and leadership have inspired and helped many young women leaders in new generation. Moreover, she won many awards, such as Globe and Mail CEO of the year, Business in Vancouver CEO of the year, and top 50 most influential women in BC.

Christine Day starts off by giving the advice of “claiming your power” to young leaders. The power of self-leadership has shaped Christine Day’s fundamental. The power of self-leadership means self-leading, self-knowledge, and responsibility. Every leader needs to find his or her own style. This will help leaders to discover their true responsibility. Responsibility can create great traits and take control. When leader take control of their leadership, they must be aware of power because it might impact the result of contribution.

Day believes successful leader needs to have these 2 responsibilities in their mind.

Create future of others
Create space for others

Every leader wants to contribute. Contribution is a way for leader to tap into their power. When successful leaders talk about leadership, they are not talking about power. Many people purposely put a frame around the word leadership or power. It is up to leaders to find a way to break them. To become powerful, leader needs two elements.

Self-gain
Serve for others

With these two elements, leaders can be powerful, which they can motivate others.

Day explains in the old days, many people defined women leadership as “looking glass of men”. This made Day very uncomfortable. She took the stand on what she believed. Every leader needs to have that kind of courage. Day questions leaders in the room that if they have the courage to take on their own goals. Courage is the key.

Leaders do not learn “acquire power” from school; instead, they learn it during their career journey. Day emphasizes there is something called “dysfunctional leadership”.

Dysfunctional leadership is act to protect their power. It also describes leaders who do not collaborate or who do not have sense of community. This kind of leadership uses power of punishment to get what they want. Day believes this type of leadership are often shown a lot in entrepreneurs because recognition is important for entrepreneurs. The true power does not come from individual, yet it comes from others. Give creditability to others is the best way to claim power. It is all about team work and leaders must always be confidence on the progress.

“If you only have leadership for yourself, no one is willing to follow”

People work for someone who will help them get to where they want to be. The purpose of corporation unites people to work together. People join with similar purpose, which comes from power of contribution.

Power of status quo

Day believes when leaders are rewarded by status quo, they are learning not to take risks. Rewards cannot help leaders all the way. They need to know they are making a difference. To become a great leader, they need to think through of themselves.

Power of engagement

The power of engagement is the ability to empower others. Many people do want to contribute and they want to participate. Instead of judgement, leaders should make job people want to do. By giving them a sense of ownership, they will find themselves enjoy work. Day believes stress comes from hard work with no purpose and passion comes from hard work with purpose.

Power of taking the stage

Leaders must be a hero of their stories. If not, others are not willing to follow. When leaders become a hero, they are able to communicate their vision to others. Leaders need to appreciate others. However, sometimes they need to stand out for themselves by giving them the power play moments. Day believes will power comes from stand the criticism. When leaders know someone took their ideas, they should either claim it back and be assuring.

Leaders earn their power and then give it away.

“Leaders have to lead, not support”

Power of relationship

The power of relationship is to remove barriers for alignment. When leaders use authority, they must be accountable. People are obtain waiting to see where the power balance is. Relationship allows leader to seek opportunities. Day believes power balance is where the risk goes. When there is power struggle, leaders should never choose success over their own values. This is the power of choice. Whenever leaders feel powerless, they must remember they still have the power of choice. Day believes power lies on daily small choices. When knowledge is gone, leaders still have the power of love.

Question and answers

By building share experience, leaders can help others to be a part of progress. People seek share experience and it is a great way for leaders to gain their trusts. When leaders deal with difficult people, leaders can ask questions back and never react on that individual. Leaders can learn from them and get to know their why.

Day believes the best questions to ask people in mentorship is “how are you at service?” and “are you matching my purpose?”. These two questions will help leaders to discover their true identity.

Day suggests leaders that many things are not related to talent. It is important for leaders to connect others from who they really are. Problem is just a problem and facing problem is the best solution. The more leaders declare, the more people will come in solve it with them.

October 10 2015

INSPIRE – Celebrating Entrepreneurship

ftyang Archive, Business Seminar Arran Stephens, Business Seminar, Christine Day, Kate Ross LeBlanc, Sean Clark, Small Business BC, Terry McBride 0

Date: October 1, 2015

Name: INSPIRE – Celebrating Entrepreneurship

Presenters: Terry McBride, Kate Ross Leblanc, Arran Stephens, Sean Clark, and Christine Day

October is the month for entrepreneurs to celebrate their contributions to their local communities. Moreover, it is important for entrepreneurs to take time to inspire the success of others. Small Business BC presents INSPIRE event to provide opportunity for local entrepreneurs to inspire other successful entrepreneurs’ strength, determination, and passion. The panel includes Terry McBride, the CEO and Co-Founder of YYoga, Kate Ross Leblanc, the CEO and Co-Founder of Saje Natural Wellness, Arran Stephens, the CEO and Co-Founder of Nature’s Path, and Sean Clark, the Co-Founder of SHOES.COM. Entrepreneurs will also get the opportunity to listen Christine Day, the CEO of Luvo, to discuss her journey and experience of entrepreneurship. Moreover, entrepreneurs will receive their personal advices in this presentation and discover the key aspects of a becoming a successful entrepreneur.

The Masterclass Panel

Every companies have their own culture. People can sense the culture. Kate Ross LeBlanc believes culture can attract light-minded people. Culture can identify the real values, and values should not mainly focus on aspiration. LeBlanc believes companies want to connect deeper and meaningful values. If people show they care, they will nurture the culture.

The setback can be different for many entrepreneurs. Terry McBride shares that there was a time when he sold his house to ensure capital for his business expansion. Many great leaders lead by example and they all make decisions from love and passion. Moreover, love and passion are natural characteristic of leadership.

Success does not come easy for Sean Clark. He mentions he started his business in his basement. He never gave up of becoming an entrepreneur, and he did all he could in order to make his dream into reality. The process allowed him to learn the value of dollar in business. Entrepreneurs need to focus on sales because cash flow will run out one day. For many entrepreneurs, they will face the outcome of either bankrupt or becoming the next billionaire.

The tipping point for Clark is to when he made the decision let go all his staff. Clark took the opportunity to search deep about himself and the business, which made him grow. Clark encourages entrepreneurs to spend time on personal development.

Arran Stephens believes success only fail when entrepreneurs give up. 80% of entrepreneurs fail and only 20% of entrepreneurs will continue. Furthermore, 80% of those 20% who continue will succeed. The value and principles are important, and entrepreneurs should never sacrifice money for quality. Stephens suggests entrepreneurs should only expand until they are in control.

“Entrepreneurs build business to last, not to sell”

If business is at the point of sell, McBride believes finding the person who will move forward for the business is significant. LeBlanc and Clark both agree that the person must add values, create values, and align with mission of business.

In order to maintain strong relationship, LeBlanc suggests entrepreneurs to share the right values because the right values will lead to the right direction. When there is disagreement, Stephens believes it is a good thing. Disagreement can help people understand the differences. As long as there is generous heart, entrepreneurs will find the way to resolve disagreements.

Entrepreneurs have their own ways to motivate. For Clark, it is wine. McBride will do yoga and Stephens will do garden and meditation. McBride will mediate 4 or 5 o’clock in the morning. 15 minutes of meditation is equivalent to 4 hours of energy rest. Moreover, Stephens understands meditation will inspire and energize for entrepreneurs to make better decision.

LeBlanc ensures her employees understand the values in corporation. A part of orientation for Saje Natural Wellness is to ensure the new employees are clarified with the corporate values. Clark encourages his employees to hashtag the values because it will help them reinforce the message.

“Align the value with people is critical”

The biggest challenge for McBride was when he took off the training wheel for his business too early. The result of that costed him a significant amount of learning curve. Stephens shares he once opened up a breakfast cereal company, but it failed. However, He did not give up and soon the company has silver lining. LeBlanc had once lost her trademark. Because she could not able to downsize the company fast enough, it took her years to recover the damage. Stephens also mentions there are many incubators in the industry to help startups. Moreover, they will learn by challenge their mistakes.

“No such thing as mistake; mistake is opportunity”

Stephens recommends entrepreneurs to reinvest themselves, prepare to change and change every mark. Clark recommends entrepreneurs to implement system and think big all the time. LeBlanc recommends entrepreneurs to document everything and create the right structure. McBride wants entrepreneurs to understand instead of holding what they had, they should throw it out open and understand the emotional behaviour of their customers. They need to have dialogue with customers and understand who they really are.

Keynote Presentation

Christine Day, the CEO of Luvo, believes her career journey in StarBucks and Lululemon have strengthen her to become what she is today. By helping these top brand corporations, she learned that her path of entrepreneurship does not get easier, but she gets wiser.

Day will share her top great values she learned from her experience.

Great #1: Purpose

Employees will join with the right purpose. With the right purpose, they are able to share branding experience and create loyal customers. Purpose can help people engage, and employees will challenge new problems to align the purpose. When employees are inspired with the purpose, they will stay. Day believes every entrepreneur needs to live the value and share the value. Moreover, public companies with good values create opportunities.

Great #2: Differentiation

Entrepreneurs should not be afraid to go first. They will seek what they need to accomplish their purpose. Entrepreneurs will look for white space in the market to add value to the exiting consumers. They look for patterns and analyze insights. Connection and communication are important for entrepreneurs because it can help them scale with multiple global systems. Day believes by mastering customization for consumers, entrepreneurs will seek new disruptive opportunities.

“Speak the patterns and differentiate with others”

Great #3: Knowledge

Entrepreneurs need to know the business, the frontline, and the scale. They need to know what it takes to survive in their market. Entrepreneurs need to be clear what good looks like. Entrepreneurs need to build models with good qualities. Efficient and effective are two drivers for entrepreneurs. By knowing what matters, entrepreneurs can make decision that match with the brand.

“Do not run your business with average”

Great #4: Team

Successful entrepreneurs engage with high potential team. The team can help entrepreneurs to develop strategic planning. When entrepreneurs create opportunities big enough for their team, they will build the better values. Entrepreneurs should always hand off opportunities to others and allow them to perform. Sometimes strong culture can prevent people from reaching potentials. Day believes team should not be any contests; instead, it should be collaboration.

Day believes all entrepreneurs have these 2 abilities.

The ability to make future
The ability to create opportunity for others

Entrepreneurs will make risks into values and allocate resources to accomplish the purpose. Great entrepreneurs know themselves well and take on great responsibilities. Entrepreneurs lead themselves and other. They also teach and coach others how to lead and manage. Entrepreneurs develop internal talents and never disconnect to themselves out of the market.

Sometimes ego can get away from ideas for leaders. When people are treating them as authority figure, they are not connecting in business. Therefore, Day suggests entrepreneurs to listen and embrace awareness and values from other people’s talents.

“Be bold and brave; if not, you will be talking about someone who does”

The scariest thing for Day is the fear of failure. Day conquers the fear by trying her best, and have confidence that purpose will get her though. The advice she will give to old self is to dream a bigger dream.

Feedback is a gift and it is the responsibility for entrepreneurs to tell others to perform well. Day advices small business owners to be nimbleness, authentic , and proximity to the truth. Many big corporations are stuck with their legacy traditions. They could not get away from the brand they created. Day believes small business owners can scale up their business by creating new attractions to inspire new consumers to buy. Do not be afraid to create new attractions.

“nimbleness, authenticity, and proximity to the truth”