From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
It's not enough to lead yourself, you need to tune into the people you work with- the people that you know- your family. You need to pick up non-verbal cues, facial expressions, tone of voice.
Vulnerability isn't oversharing; it isn't necessarily personal. And that's where some of the fear has come from—this sense that leaders might need to role-model less sharing about their personal lives. Yet vulnerability can look very different. Trust benefits from clearer boundaries, because trust needs clear expectations and clear limits.
It's about creating legal accountability around the creation of value for stakeholders, not just shareholders. That's what changes the conversation in the boardroom.
We need a change from managers to leaders. We need people who can understand the political and moral structure of their companies, and who can motivate and bring people to go in the direction of those values. That's true leadership.
This is an ultra-competitive category, and that means that there's real value being created. If nobody shows up to the party, it's probably not a great party. When it comes to staying competitive, I've always focused on the customer and worked backwards from there.
Too often, organizations become like frogs in boiling water—gradually losing their competitiveness because everyone is afraid to take risks. The short-term pain of taking a risk seems more daunting than the long-term consequences, even though the long-term pain could be the loss of competitive advantage and, ultimately, the entire value of the enterprise.
If you fail many times in life, it can be frustrating, but, if you look differently at that, you can see that if you fail many times, you get up many times. If you didn't get up after the first fall, you could never have fought. Failure just means you got knocked down.
In the business world, we need to focus on the 4-Cs. Firstly, Customer. Secondly, Competition. Thirdly, Comfort. It doesn't matter how successful you are, how much market share you have, if you're in your comfort zone you will leave yourself exposed. Fourth, Courage. You have to be prepared to take tough decisions. Cowardice pushes the day of reckoning out, decisiveness brings it closer.
Individuals who are creative are sensitive, they can be vulnerable and can take things incredibly personally – often they are putting the rawest version of themselves out there so when that's criticised it can be really difficult and damaging. We try to put ourselves in our client's shoes and champion empathy as a team.
What we need now is the George C. Marshall of our era to help us train better than the Chinese and the Russians.
When most people are asked questions, they try to jump into the other person's mind and second-guess what they're supposed to be saying. They want to sound interesting… they want to sound smart, like a mogul who's on the cover of Forbes. I just want to tell it like it is…
It's important that every person you work with, all your colleagues, all your co-workers, leave a company with more skills and economic mobility than when they arrived. Further, it's important the time they spent with you wasn't miserable, that it was great, good, enjoyable.