thought leadership
When Rasmus Ankersen was
at a conference in Finland
to give a keynote address,
he happened to meet three
Nokia employees. Every single one of them
had an iPhone in their pocket.
“I thought, ‘Working at Nokia and owning
an iPhone must be an unforgivable
sin,’” he said.
Six months later, Nokia’s phone division
was sold to Microsoft.
“The company became a brutal reminder
of the short distance from greatness to
(a) fall,” said Ankersen. “From 50 per cent
market share to three per cent in just five
years. It made me think that while we
talk a lot about how to achieve success,
we rarely think about how to sustain success.
To me, Nokia proved that it is harder
to stay successful than to become successful.
It’s harder to innovate when you have
something to lose. And it’s a lot harder
to create an urgency to improve when all
you see around you is abundance. This is
exactly the dilemma that any successful organization
faces: how to create hunger in
paradise.”
Hunger in Paradise: The War Against
Complacency is the title of Ankersen’s
most recent book, as well as his keynote at
HRPA’s Annual Conference.
While we talk a lot about how to
achieve success, we talk too little about its
consequences – about the complacency, arrogance
and the fear of losing it all again,
which often follow as a shadow of success.
Success produces complacency. But how
do you stay humble and keep innovating
when the company cashes in record profits?
That’s the central question Ankersen
will address.
During the keynote, attendees will master
the five lessons we need to learn avoid
becoming another victim of complacency:
never trust in success; burn your trophies;
if it ain’t broken, consider breaking it; kill
the illusion of perfect conditions; and create
a compelling ‘why.’
Ankersen has trained with the planet’s
best athletes to translate their secrets of
high performance into usable strategies for
leaders and businesses. His previous bestselling
book, The Goldmine Effect: Crack
the Secrets of High Performance, was written
after Ankersen travelled around the
world to unlock the secrets of success of
top athletes.
Ankersen wrote his first book, The DNA
of a Winner, and a year later, published his
second book, Leader DNA, based on field
studies of 25 high-profile leaders. Among
Ankersen’s clients are organizations such
as Facebook, Boston Consulting Group,
IKEA, Rotman Business School, Nasdaq
and Ernst & Young. He has been featured
on Sky News Business, CBC, Global and
Fox Sports, and is also a regular columnist
in several business magazines.
For his work, he has won a Berlingske
business magazine award and has been
named one of the three biggest business
talents in Denmark. Ankersen is also the
chairman of FC Midtjylland, and holds
the position of co-director of football at
Brentford FC.
Attend Rasmus Ankersen’s keynote address
at HRPA’s Annual Conference and Trade
Show, February 2 at 12:00 p.m.
WHILE WE TALK A LOT ABOUT HOW TO
ACHIEVE SUCCESS, WE TALK TOO LITTLE
ABOUT ITS CONSEQUENCES.
HRPROFESSIONALNOW.CA ❚ SPECIAL CONFERENCE EDITION 2017 ❚ 29