From 600+ conversations with the world’s leading thinkers.
Every reason why we fight reveals a cost that our society ignored. The grisly, terrible costs of fighting are often 'nil' where, for example in the case of a dictator, the leadership is not held to account.
All we can control in this life is our dedication, our self-belief, our determination. I can guarantee you, I will always have that, and that's my legacy. That's what I want to leave as a gift to my kids – the message that they should never give up, never have regrets, to give everything.
We compete not to just make up the numbers, but to do it right, with a full programme to achieve success on the track and meet all our other measures of success, too.
Most people we have worked with who have accomplished great things have an other-centred purpose, and that's never just 'make a lot of money…' – it could be to make women's lives easier, to close the inequality gap, to change the world, it's something which isn't strictly personal and selfish.
It was her death that actually made us say 'right, that's it – we've talked a lot but we haven't done anything. Now we've got to do something'. And that's when Zoo Check began which is what we were called in those days.
So many of our systems of power are reliant on people putting themselves forward and guess what- people who are power-hungry will put themselves forward for positions of power. We need to seek out people not just rely on self-selection. We need to headhunt people who have demonstrated leadership capability and integrity rather than just relying on those who speak well or who are members of the right 'club.'
Growing up in West Virginia, we were at the forefront economically— the chemical and coal mining center of the world. However, due to an inability to adapt to changing market dynamics and transitions, our position plummeted to the bottom ranks among the US states... I firmly advocate the idea of reinventing oneself every 5 years.
I grew up in survival mode. It was constant. I didn't know what to expect on any given day, what was coming, and I had to be strong enough to be ready for anything – to take it, hide from it, or dodge it. I had to have a strategy.
Everyone says, 'oh it's fine to make mistakes, it's fine to do things wrong'. But actually? making that true is really difficult.
I don't think about myself as a woman in these contexts, I think about myself as a human. We should take advantage of our qualities and not trying to change or hide them.
People think these founders are all brilliant and can't make mistakes, we've found that; there's a sense that they can fix everything or have the answers for everything… they don't, and they can't.
We need companies to play by a different set of accountabilities, not just those that are related to performance. 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.