TWO’S company – 3,000’s a crowd, as Dave Murrell found out this year having been thrust in to the spotlight to accept a prestigious prize for his company. And the businessman, Head of Servers, Storage and Desktop Services in the technical arm of The Cooperative Group, cites the Naked Leader as a source of inspiration for his company picking up the Citrix Innovation Award for 2010.
You might expect someone involved in storage to be able to compute the techniques gleaned from Naked Leader founder David Taylor and Bob Perry, who is at the leading edge of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP).
Dave did just that and, having attended three stimulating courses in the past 12 months, laid on by David and his team, including NLP and Mastery for Rising Stars, he has no hesitation in championing the Naked Leader concept.
The Citrix Innovation Award programme recognises customers that are using Citrix solutions in transformative and noteworthy ways, resulting in significant business innovation and IT simplicity. Dave’s company has excelled in that area. More than 22,000 votes were cast, around 30 global companies were nominated, with 11 chosen as finalists. This was the fifth year of competition, with a variety of IT industry professionals, including Citrix CTOs, industry analysts, former Innovation Award winners, on the judging panel.
Dave takes up the story: ‘We didn’t appreciate just how big a deal this award was until I had to get up on a stage in front more than 3,000 people in Berlin to accept it, with many more watching live on the internet,’ he says. ‘David’s training helped me to win it, it’s as simple as that.
‘It got me to focus on what we wanted to achieve and we went out to win the award. It was one of my top three “I’m going to do this” for 2010 and I used some of the learnings from the course I attended last year, and the two this. I was able to bring in the components and methods which David had been coaching us in terms of sponsorship and other ideas.
‘Part of that process was making a true decision. I opted for a certain way to go and we were able to achieve. It was down to the Naked Leader training. David and Bob were a great help.’
David was delighted to hear of Dave’s exciting news and delighted that the Naked Leader message had made such a big impact. ‘Once Dave had taken that true decision, and closed off all other options, his success was sealed,’ he enthused.
Dave is proud to have been part of such a huge coup for his organisation. ‘What makes the award so special to us, and me, is that our team had to overcome so many obstacles, and it was the manner in which they overcome them that made it especially pleasing.
‘Most humbling to me was just how much support we received externally from all over the UK/Europe and just how much effort and enthusiasm our partners put in also. That includes the Naked Leader so I’d like to thank them for their help.’
For more information on Naked Leader seminars, see here.