Introduction

When Robert Thompson speaks to an audience about leadership, he often sees before him a room full of potential film stars. Most, however, are playing secondary roles in movies with lousy scripts authored by others. Thompson's message is that becoming a leader means choosing to write your own script and committing to play a starring role in it.

Thompson's book, The Offsite: A Leadership Challenge Fable, tells the story of just such an evolving storyline.

It follows a group of business colleagues who arrive at an off-site meeting with a lackluster script and finish by transforming it into a blockbuster. Using plain, frank language, Thompson brings out what meeting participants are really thinking...about the actual effectiveness of their managers and teams... about yet another offsite meeting... about their own fears of being exposed as a poser... about not knowing all the answers, or even the right questions.

By speaking what others are saying to themselves inside, but afraid to express out loud, Robert Thompson establishes a starting point for creative discussion of what can change and how to start from now. People quickly get the concept that they are self-determining individuals who make choices every day about whether to cower, cope or create and that the outcome of these choices is their present story. Thompson's "Never Ending Story" process provides proven steps for creatively re-writing and starring in one's own life, as an individual and in groups, both professionally and personally.

Many of Thompson's speeches draw on and build-off of situations dramatized in his book, The Offsite. Sometimes he even brings along characters from the book who, in their fears, follies, inspirations and triumphs, are easy for audiences to relate to. Using The Five Practices of Exemplary Leadership™ and Robert’s Rules: The Four Commitments™, the above topics can be combined and modified to fit your audience's characteristics and needs.

The Five Practices Robert's Rules: The Four Commitments