Serve to Be Great: Leadership Lessons from a Prison, a Monastery, and a Boardroom

Chapter 4Creating a Highly Innovative Culture

Linking Innovation Directly to Profit

Dr. E. Ted Prince, founder of the prestigious Perth Leadership Institute, began his climb to the peaks of the leadership development world from one of the lowest of the proverbial valleys. Abandoned by his mother at a young age, he grew up in the harsh environment of an orphanage outside London, England, in the days when neglect and maltreatment were the norm. He had a brief respite from orphanage life as a teenager, when his mother returned to take custody of him again. But he would soon find out that she was just using him to get a free ticket to move to Australia as part of a program offered by the British Government at the time. She abandoned him again almost immediately upon arriving in Australia.

Dr. Prince worked his way through college in Australia, but not without challenges. At one point, he was told by one of the most respected eye doctors in Australia that he was going to go blind, likely because of all the lead he was exposed to in the orphanage. He prepared for months to live the rest of his life without sight and lost his scholarship as a result of the prognosis. Miraculously, although his sight deteriorated for some time, he never went blind. His sight eventually returned to normal. Despite the good news, Dr. Prince could not get his scholarship back, which meant he would have to take on another job to pay his way through school.

After graduating college, Dr. Prince went on to ...