After the lunch break, we welcomed IT & MSP business growth expert Ian Luckett (pictured) to the stage to deliver his keynote on what constitutes the cornerstone of MSP leadership success. IT experts running a managed services business is one thing, but leading an efficient, profitable and enjoyable IT business is a totally different matter.
With his experience in building high-performing and aligned leadership teams, Luckett dropped some revealing statistics including that 79% of employees cite lack of appreciation as a reason to quit their job. So leadership has to have a degree of vulnerability and empathy to retain talent. He also spoke about the ‘leadership point’, in that you have to understand who you are before you understand what others need. Laying the groundwork is one thing but knowing what ingredients are needed for an enduring foundation is key, which he summed up with a twist on a household mantra: Treat others as they would want to be treated.
Being relatable and accessible is a vital characteristic of the modern C-suite as you are, Luckett says, the average of the five immediate people around you. He also mapped out the keys to team leadership, which included team vision, team awareness, reward and recognition, and employee engagement which is all about making sure they have an outlet to express themselves. Having a purpose, with colleagues in mind, should always be the key motivator.
Following the keynote was a collection of rapid-fire sessions. First was titled How to Keep Up with the Best in Class by Raymond Parkinson from ConnectWise. Then Adaptavist’s Trefor James simply titled his talk Listen, Adapt and Thrive. Then Sophos’ Kyle Torres talked us through how to build a better mousetrap with their Managed Threat Response (MTR). virtualDCS’ Jason Newell was next in rotation, speaking about partnering for success with Veeam Cloud Service Providers. And to round out this portion of the afternoon, Roger Jones from Cradlepoint asked why choose wireless WAN?
And to end the day, moderator Will Garside invited a prestigious panel for the UK MSP debate to ask if the MSP model sustainable, the challenges of vendors going direct, and if automation can make up for the skills shortage. These and other questions bounced around the audience and stage, which featured MSPs from the community like Phil Bird, CEO at The PC Support Group, David Brereton, director at MysonPages, and Robert Gibbons, Cara Technologies.
For more information on the Managed Services Summit North, please go here.
