A Book Circle for Creating Leadership Minds

A Book Circle for Creating Leadership Minds
The Keynes Centre in UCC is launching its 6th series of Reading for Transformation Book Circle, an innovative approach to delivering personal and professional development training via a book club platform. The book club focuses on how we can expand our minds to become more creative, innovative, and effective leaders and provides practical tools and techniques for people needing to keep up with the fast-moving and ever-changing competitive conditions in business and society.

Led by Professor Connell Fanning, director of The Keynes Centre and former Head of UCC’s School of Economics, this unique CPD eligible book club is an informal gathering of people from various walks of life (everyone is welcome, though places limited to 10-12 participants). It is a space where we join to unearth the ideas of six short books, carefully selected by Professor Fanning, which go beyond business bestsellers to more intellectual depths. Discussions are guided to an extent, but are also dependent on participants and where they choose to lead the sessions. Outside the 8 meetings, which take place on the last Monday of every month starting at the end of Septmeber and concluding in May, participants receive weekly newsletters and stay in touch informally through an online space as well.

The focus of the book club is Leadership, but explorations of our relationship with others and ourselves, as well as the practice of reading and reflection, are also important. It is a challenging experience requiring an open mind that will help participants to create their own Leadership Capability that is a reflection of their own personal journey. This creates the confidence, clarity, and creativity that is critical to building connections to others in a more effective way.

The dynamic Reading for Transformation Book Circle has already been delivered to over 40 participants since 2015 by Professor Fanning and his team and has been described as “intellectually engaging,” “creative” and “innovative”. Past participants have come from all walks of life, completing the programme over the course of eight months. One alumni has remarked "The Keynes Centre offers a different approach to learning that is of huge value: the gentle challenging of our assumptions as well as the developing of critical thinking. It leads to lifelong habit changes."

Bookings are now being taken for the 2019-2020 programme starting on the 30^th September and taking place at The Keynes Centre, 13 South Mall, Cork: https://uccshop.ie/shop/keynes-centre-reading-change-book-club-2018-19/.

Places are very limited, so early booking is encouraged to avoid disappointment. More information about the programme can be found at http://keynes.ucc.ie/readingforchange/.