The 16th Annual Business Education Conference has been a success.
That’s according to the conference’s keynote speaker, Heath Slawner. The Chamber of Commerce hosted the event once again and it took place at the Days Hotel & Suites.
The half-day conference took place Tuesday, March 22nd, to celebrate business education month and Slawner did a presentation about purpose, called “What Is Your Why,” discussing what inspires people to get up in the morning and go to work.
“Most recently, I’ve started to work with a gentleman by the name of Simon Sinek, who wrote the book Start With Why. And the work that I’ve been doing with Simon and his team is all about spreading this message around purpose, and what’s our cause, what inspires us, and how do we create the kind of environments and workplaces where people are excited to go to work, they’re inspired in the morning, they go to work and feel valued, and come home at the end of the day with a sense of pride and fulfillment in having contributed to something bigger,” says Slawner.
The Montreal-native is an expert on trust-based leadership, influence, and performance in business. He says people often choose inspiration and fulfillment over money from their occupations.
“There’s just this crazy desire to really understand and want to do something more than for just the money… There are studies out there that are showing that people are willing to take a pay cut of up to 50% in order to work at an organization for whom, their purpose, their mission, is something that they strongly believe in.”
Slawner also said he had a great time in Lloydminster and thanked all the sponsors and attendees for allowing him to be there.
“I’ll tell you, my experience in Lloydminster will stay with me for a very long time. Everyone was so warm, and friendly, and eager. We have this expression in our team, we call it ‘feed the hungry,” meaning we want to work with people that want to work with us. We don’t want to force-feed anybody. And I felt that there was a real interest and keenness on the part of the participants. Everyone was just so generous and friendly. So I felt particularly touched and emotionally comfortable to be in the community.”
The conference also featured several other presentations: one on Social Media Marketing from local group, 1450 Marketing Collective; speaker, Jean Vidal; and a presentation from the Government of Alberta Jobs, Skills, Training & Labour.
The event was made possible thanks to the following sponsors: Lloydminster Chamber of Commerce; Lloydminster Construction Association; Lakeland College; Lloydminster Learning Council; Regional Business Accelerator; Alberta Job, Skills, Training & Labour; & Lloydminster Economic Development.