There was an article in the Sydney Morning Herald last Friday about the Sydney Leadership program delivered by the Benevolent Society and that I just completed. Being in Sydney Leadership reminded me of when I changed sectors. Having initiated my career in the corporate sector, when I moved to the not for profit sector a few years back, I faced a much bigger adjustment than I first expected and it opened my eyes to the big gap there is between the sectors.

As mentioned in the article, one of the main benefits of the program is the exposure that the participants get to some of the most challenging social issues in our society by doing things like visiting a prison or spending a day with teenagers at risk. The other aspect that was mentioned was the benefits of the conversation that is created between leaders from all the different sectors. This is the aspect I want to discuss briefly and that I think brings not only benefits to the participants of this program and that could serve as a model for other spaces.

In his recent visit to Australia, Charles Leadbeater mentioned that "innovation is about combination, which means it has to be about conversation". After spending most of this year exchanging intense experiences with a group of leaders from different sectors some of the benefits of this spaces for conversation and their importance for social innovation continue becoming clearer.

On one hand, some of the participants of the program from the private sector commented in several opportunities that the interactions with people from the not for profit sector allowed them to see some of the aspects of society that they were never exposed to. This also changed the way they saw the social issues experienced in our society and they believed this changed the way they were going to approach their personal and professional life in the future. In some cases, this has resulted in some of the participants of the program changing sectors and in others it assisted them approach their roles in a different way by helping them be more socially aware.

On the other hand, when non for profit leaders get exposed to the ideas and emotions of leaders from the private sector, a feeling of connection and acceptance is generated when they open themselves to listen the other side of the story. As Meredith Turnbull, Sydney Leadership 2007 mentioned in the SMH. "My difficulties and vulnerabilities were no more important than theirs. I saw that despite having power they had got to a point where they wanted to make a difference; they craved the meaning I got from my work, as I craved some of the money their work gave them."

On a different level, when you combine the experience of working directly on social issues that the leaders from not for profit organisations bring with the knowledge and experience of successful executives from the private sector and public servants, the collision of the unknown opens a space where new ideas and ways to approach social issues could be generated. As John Stuckey said, "where ideas collide, innovation happens"

I suggest that in a time where we need to find new ways to tackle our most challenging social issues, the creation of more spaces for conversation should be looked at closely both by governments, if they want to have a more open and inclusive public policy making process, and the private sector, if they want to have a real positive impact with their corporate social responsibility agendas.

I finish with another quote from Leadbeater from the Guardian: "Innovation comes from our capacity to collaborate creatively." After spending almost a year involved in conversations with people from all sectors, I could not agree more with Leadbeater that this could make a real difference in our society.