A note to young leaders. When someone attacks you, the temptation is to strike back. To fight arms with arms. But far better is to disarm – and there’s nothing more disarming than humour, especially of the self-deprecating kind. When Abraham Lincoln was campaigning in 1858 against Senator Stephen A. Douglas, the attacks turned personal. […]
A note to young leaders. On friendship. I came across this line recently and it made me smile: “Friends are God’s apology for relatives.” Relatives are given to us and we have a duty to love them – though not always to like them. Friends, by contrast, are gifted onto us. We don’t so much […]
A note to young leaders. If you dare, dare greatly. State of Origin, 2001. The series is tied 1–1. Queensland is reeling from the loss of its captain, Gorden Tallis, to a serious neck injury. A red-hot, star-studded NSW looks ready to steamroll a young and shaken Maroons side. Wayne Bennett rolls the dice. He […]
A note to young leaders. The solution isn’t always in the numbers. A man passes away, leaving 17 goats to his three sons. His will states that the eldest should receive half, the second a third, and the youngest a ninth. The sons are perplexed – 17 doesn’t divide evenly by 2, 3 or 9. […]
A note to young leaders. “There, but for the grace of you, go I.” That’s the brilliant, final line of Kathy’s Song by Simon & Garfunkel. It’s a surprising twist on the familiar proverb: “There, but for the grace of God, go I.” But grace need not only be divine. It can, and must, be […]
A note to young leaders. Lessons from my father. When I was in my mid-twenties, my father overheard me complaining about a colleague who greatly annoyed me. Dad, waiting for my rant to come to a cathartic end, looked me in the eye and said: “Everyone has something valuable to teach you.” “Even people I […]
A note to young leaders. Self-belief isn’t a happy accident. It’s a mantra, oft repeated, deeply believed. In 1984, Madonna had just finished performing “Holiday” on her first appearance on American Bandstand. Host Dick Clark asks her: “What do you hope will happen, not only this year, but for the rest of your professional life? […]
A note to young people. You’re holding a cup of coffee in your hand and someone bumps into you, spilling coffee everywhere. Why did you spill coffee? Most people would say it’s because someone bumped into you. But that’s the reason your cup was disturbed. The reason you spilled coffee is because that’s what was […]
A note to young leaders. When it comes to entrepreneurship, migrants have an edge. They’re hungry. Super hungry. When Jan Koum was just 16 years old, he left Soviet Ukraine with his mother in search of a better life in the United States. They settled in Mountain View, California, where they lived in a small, […]