Leading innovation and A.I. specialists were among guest speakers and facilitators at GMC’s CEO program retreat last weekend. Andrew Jones, G2 Innovation, and James Baird, Orchestrated, probed how to build trust and capability among teams, reward learning over certainty, and focus on the problem you are trying to solve, not the solution.
“Manufacturers are perfectionists, which makes absolute sense,” Jones said. The tricky thing about developing an innovation culture is that “innovation needs a culture of learning, not perfection”, he said. “I consider myself a recovering perfectionist.”
GMC’s CEO retreat took a senior leadership group through a series of workshops focused on strategy development and implementation, how to develop an innovation culture, lessons from regional manufacturing founders, owners and long-time CEOs, and peer to peer conversations.
“As a leader, if I have time to stare out the window, I consider myself a success.” Shane Vicary, CEO of AKD Softwoods, as guest facilitator at the GMC 2025 CEO program.
The CEO program, with facilitation by Melbourne Business School Professor of Strategy, Geoff Martin, covers pressing issues, away from day-to-day distractions.