Your life wouldn’t be better if your world was worse

Does it ever occur to you that part of what made Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. so great were the adversity that they had to face and overcome? That if you lived in a world with such injustice, you'd have cause to overcome it too and you might reach that level of greatness? I wonder how many people think, "I'd be a better leader if only I lived at a time like MLK did or Gandhi did so I'd have a noble cause to work on." No way! This is specious thinking. I think people tend to think it…

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Video: Mansudae Hill, location of 20-meter tall statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il

Here we are approaching Mansudae Hill, the location of 20-meter tall statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il.  Love the men or hate them, they ruled the country for seventy years, so they're important for the people here. We see children leaving the giant statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il. At the start I was holding the camera at my side to be more respectful but picked it up when I saw everyone else holding their cameras up. Toward the end I show the 20-meter tall statues and their grand surroundings. Kim Jong Il's statue…

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Video: Revolutionary Martyrs’ Cemetery on the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s birth

A video of the Revolutionary Martyrs' Cemetery on the hundredth anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth -- roughly like being at Arlington on July 4, 1976. There were many soldiers and foreign tourists, making for an odd mix. Normally the government prohibits tourists from taking pictures of the military, but perhaps for the special day, since they were there ceremonially, and since there were so many of them they let us take pictures and video of them. The cemetery also overlooks Pyongyang and the Mausoleum holding the bodies of Kim Il Sung and, presumably by this point, Kim Jong Il,…

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George Clooney on being yourself in the face of adversity

For my third post on George Clooney's Inside the Actors Studio interview, here he speaks on being yourself in challenging situations. I've written on the overlap I see between the art and craft of leadership and acting, how both deeply involve being aware of knowing and managing your emotions so you can know and evoke emotions in others. I think the training of leaders can benefit from the more mature field of training actors, and I'll write more on that later. What Clooney says about actors I believe applies to leaders as well, since leaders necessarily work where others can…

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Video: Bringing peace sooner: High-fiving North Koreans in Kim Il Sung Square, part 2

Shortly after last post's videos, we returned to Kim Il Sung Square and interacted with more North Koreans, overcoming language obstacles in North Korea with friendly body language. If our would-be leaders don't create peace, understanding, and communication between us, we have to lead them. The more we interact the more we understand each other. That's how we show we aren't the monsters or dupes their government says we are and vice versa. When was the last time you saw so many North Koreans smiling, shaking hands, high-fiving, and laughing with Americans? The woman you see returning my camera after…

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George Clooney on accountability

Following up yesterday's post on George Clooney on living well, I sampled another clip from the same interview in which he talked about accountability. The context is his winning an award for his work on Darfur. I think the clip illustrates how to keep focused on results, not accolades. And even to remember that the results you can achieve don't necessarily mean results that you want to achieve in the long run. Reporting on hidden problems helps -- how else can you try to solve them -- but it doesn't solve them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyl5vQCiOrk Accountability: without it things don't get done.…

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Video: Bringing peace sooner: High-fiving North Koreans in Kim Il Sung Square

Usually I post North Korea posts separate from my main page, but I consider today's videos too-good examples of leadership not to include in the main page (despite being in the middle of a series of George Clooney posts). The scene: Kim Il Sung Square, Pyongyang, April 14, 2012 -- the day before the celebration of the hundred-year anniversary of Kim Il Sung's birth. Whether you like him or not, his country reveres and honors him. The equivalent in America would be the Mall in D.C. on July 3, 1976. When you see military parades of North Korea, you're seeing…

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Observations on leadership and success from Inside the Actors Studio

I've watched a lot of episodes of Inside the Actors Studio. I've referred to it before and I'll keep referring to it as a resource for leadership because actors and leaders share this common element to their craft: part of our jobs is to recognize and manage emotions in ourselves to communicate them and create and inspire emotions in others. Actors tend to inspire laughter, tears, and catharsis whereas leaders tend to inspire motivation, dedication, and action, but those are just different ranges of emotions. Both crafts inspire emotions in others through identifying and creating emotions in ourselves. That common…

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An exercise in doing what you have to even when you don’t want to

Everybody faces tasks they don't want to start, know they have to do, but also know won't take that long -- things you might characterize like pulling teeth, holding your nose and taking your medicine, or grinning and bearing it. We all want to learn to motivate ourselves better. Examples include talking to your boss about a raise, talking to a significant other about a problem that's been bothering you for a while, or finally sitting down and doing your taxes. You know the task won't take that long. It probably won't even hurt. But you have to do it.…

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How to take risks

I've written about my models for how to motivate doing things you aren't good at. Such skills are important in many fields, but especially so in leadership. More than having to motivate yourself to do things for the first time, you often have to motivate many others to do things they haven't done. One is my practice of having low standards the first time I do something, which motivates doing things the first time at all. I can always improve later. But I have to try once to get to later tries. Another is Martha Graham's statement: Nobody cares if…

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Leadership in garbage we can learn from

I just read that Sweden is separating their trash so effectively, they're buying garbage from other countries. That is, their reducing-reusing-and-recycling programs work so well, their waste-incineration program is running low. Needless to say, reducing waste reduces pollution more than incinerating garbage, so one program starving the other helps the environment. According to Phys.org, Europe's average amount of trash ending up as waste if 38 percent. Sweden's is 1 percent. I shudder at what the United States' is. My home country doesn't lead in this area. It follows. Probably embarrassingly, at least for people who don't like to pollute the…

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An entrepreneurial example of leading by example

In September, 2001, the company I co-founded, Submedia, was installing its first display in Atlanta for our first big launch. We anticipated a lot of press. Giving away part of how the story ends, we did get a lot of media attention. The night before launch was crazy -- we had a few hours to finish installing the display, we had to prepare for the Fire Marshall's inspection the morning before the launch, and we had national, Atlanta-based, and possibly some New York-based press scheduled to attend the launch. At the pace we had worked before, we'd need more than…

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Why football is better than soccer. Actually, why any sport is better than soccer.

This post is about integrity. I like watching football. Watching a game or two on a Sunday is one of the main reasons I haven't gotten rid of my tv. Watching the Super Bowl in another country inevitably leads to people raised outside the U.S. talking about the superiority of soccer. They talk about how football has so many breaks in the action and something about grace or strategy. I see preferences between sports as a matter of personal taste so I don't find their arguments compelling. I don't argue back that football is better for the reasons I watch…

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What is your model for leadership?, part 2

Following yesterday's post asking you about your model for leadership, you might wonder mine. I looked at my paper from the business school leadership class, but my model has evolved so much from then -- the beginning of my even asking the questions -- I don't see value in posting it. Elements of my leadership model Since then I've developed my Model of the human emotional system, which I've found tremendously useful in motivation, understanding, and leading others and myself, so I consider it an essential and prominent part of my model for leadership. Even that Model I've built on,…

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What is your model for leadership?, part 1

To ask what your model for leadership is is not just an idle question. It was the sole question for the final essay in one of my leadership classes at Columbia Business School -- one of the best classes I'd ever taken, including all undergrad and graduate school classes. Models influence your behavior strongly. Since people tend to do what they think is best (though not always what you think is best), at least I believe they do, their models for things determine how they act. If you have a model that leads to effective behavior, you might lead easily…

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How you look at things solves problems, NASA-style

A scene from the inspirational docudrama Apollo 13 based on the true rescue of a disaster in space illustrates a great example of how different models and beliefs can motivate different motivations and behavior. The scene is the control room after a lunar mission suffered an explosion and three astronauts' lives were in peril as their ship hurdled through space with little chance at recovery. The characters are a fictional character representing NASA's public relations named Henry Hurt, an unnamed NASA Director Hurt interviews, and Gene Krantz, the Flight Director. This clip, though perhaps overly dramatized, shows different aspects of…

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This weekend’s leadership development seminar in Shanghai sold out

I just heard that this weekend's leadership development seminar in Shanghai sold out the last seat. If you wanted to attend but can't now, there is a good chance I'll do another in March. Please email me if you would like to be contacted about it. Thanks to everyone with the Columbia community here for making this happen and all the work behind the scenes. I look forward to seeing people there.

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Motivating with compassion but without empathy: telling someone to let go doesn’t help them let go

Do you ever find yourself trying to get someone to let go of something, to relax, or something similar, but they don't? You know if they just didn't worry so much or stopped caring about something so much, they'd have an easier time with the project, relationship, life, or whatever, but they just don't let go? You may be motivated by compassion, but I suspect a lack of empathy may be hampering you. I'll illustrate the perspective of the person you're trying to motivate with a story from my life. Fear of being judged performing in public This example is…

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Common objection 12: I’ve worked so long and hard but feel like I’m getting nowhere or going backward

[This post is part of a series on internal objections and blocks and how to overcome them. If you don't see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you'll get more value than reading just this post.] Objection I don't think you can significantly change your life, at least not at the beginning, without thinking something like I've been working on this for six months and I'm farther back than I was when I started. or I try so hard and I never get anywhere. For small or simple changes we may progress…

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Previously Unreleased Interviews with The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. from WNYC

I don't celebrate all major holidays, but I celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday. Every year I take time to do something special for the day. Usually I do something to honor his memory and achievements or learn more history. This year I have two things. First, a friend told me that WNYC just released four in-depth interviews of him. Each is about thirty minutes, so I got to listen to him speak -- not a speech or prepared anything. He was thirty-two years old in the first three (in 1961). The fourth was in 1967, with clips from 1966…

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Responsibility and accountability: expect stagnation without them

The other day I saw a post for a headline that caught my eye "On Scale of 0 to 500, Beijing’s Air Quality Tops ‘Crazy Bad’ at 755" because I was just in Beijing. I remember early one evening looking up in the sky and seeing a low flying airplane. Actually, I only saw its lights in the smog. I got confused looking at it because it looked close, so I expected it to appear to move fast. But it was moving so slowly I figured it had to be very far away. Then I realized why it didn't look…

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See Michael Feiner in New York, February 19

I am helping organize a talk by my former Professor and leadership guru Michael Feiner February 19, 6-8pm in Manhattan. I'm helping organize it with the Distinguished Leaders Committee of the Columbia Business School Alumni Club of New York (you don't have to be a member to attend). Plans may change, but I think I'm going to introduce him. I'll copy the announcement below (here is a link to the original). His course was one of my best at Columbia Business School. Actually, I think it was one of the best of almost everyone who took it, since it was…

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Joshua Spodek on Leadership Development in Shanghai

EDIT: this event is sold out. There is a good chance I'll offer it again in March. Please email me if you would like to be contacted about it. Are you reading this from Shanghai or nearby? Then you probably like leadership, want to improve, and can attend my next seminar, brought to you by Columbia University's Alumni Association in Shanghai. Columbia Alumni Association in Shanghai proudly invites you to our Leadership Development Event In a two-day seminar, learn how to develop your personal leadership skills, self-awareness and emotional intelligence using the latest advances in cognitive behavioral science, evolutionary psychology, and positive psychology.…

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Comparing biology and physics from a business leadership perspective

I studied physics to nearly the farthest levels you can at one of the great institutions. Now I study evolutionary psychology more. I've thought about these things a lot. As a practicing businessman and inventor, I look to nature -- physics -- for ideas to create and engineer to bring to market. As a leader I look to people -- biology -- to interact with, team up with, buy from, sell to, etc; in short, to influence. Sometimes I think about the fields and how I interact with them daily, not abstractly asking about the fields or as a researcher…

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Rules are other people telling you what to do; Breaking rules lets you excel

Learning Chinese as I am, I'm learning a lot of rules of that language. If you've spoken to me in person over the past few years, you've probably heard my fun-with-language game to purposefully conjugate the verbs to be and to have wrong. I often say "How is you?" or "I has to go to the store." I'll be the first to admit the mis-conjugation is affected, but it's also fun. Some friends have adopted it too and we make a game of it. I mention the game now in the context of learning language to return to a concept…

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