Distinguished speakers left us with interesting concepts to analyse and explore

A few days ago, the 15 World HR Congress came to and end in Santiago, Chile. Well-known speakers, such as Andrés Oppenheimer and Chris Gardner participated in this world-class event.

A remarkable conference was the one given by Mario Sepúlveda, one of the thirty-three miners rescued from the San José mine in October 2010, after spending 70 days trapped underground.

In his lecture, called “From the bottom of the Earth, an extreme human experience”, Sepúlveda gave several examples, showing that his life path has always been characterized by perseverance and drive. He outlined that the tragic experience he had to live with his 32 colleagues left him with a number of lessons to overcome difficult situations. The two most important ones are sense of humour and teamwork.

Sepúlveda’s main message was: “as workers, we want to be respected and to be part of projects”.

He asked employers to reflect on the fact that “we never stop being human beings. For that reason I ask you to pass on cultural and labour experiences to keep on doing business. Every single person who works is worthy of what he or she is doing. As workers, we want managers and supervisors to love us, respect us and make us part of their projects”.

Another important intervention was the one of Rita Gunther, consultant at the University of Columbia, who stated that the only competitive advantage of a company is the person.

Gunther said that “the only important advantage that you can explore and develop is the person, particularly in a world with no barriers and where competition is ruthless”. She gave some examples of large companies that used to think they had major advantages, which made their leadership in the market possible and that with the switch of personal tastes, consumption patterns or the emerging of new technology, faced an extreme downfall. “The best of technologies may be created, but people quickly get bored and therefore, the best advantages disappear”.

Gunther stated that the person has become relevant once again, as technologies can be copy, but people’s talent may be the main growth enhancer. She pointed out that “the person may be trained and make the difference.”

The Congress also had several workshops developed. A remarkable one was the workshop of the well-known psychologist, Pilar Sordo, called “Leadership and Emotion”, stood out. Sordo talked about the importance of appreciating the person within the organization, making him or her visible and personifying him or her by giving them a name and worrying about that other person.

She stated that “if I don’t care about the other person, and think of him only as a productive being, it is complicated to do with that person everything I said before”. Appreciating the “other” cannot be trained, it is connected to people’s human quality and therefore is something we must analyse and develop on our own to then transfer it to organizations.