Are U.S. universities today like U.S. automakers in the 70s and 80s?

The more I work in American universities, the more I see their decision-making and leadership behind the scenes. The more I learn about student-focused project-based learning connecting students' lives to what the schools are trying to teach and move away from more abstract academic approaches, the more I see alternatives to the education I got that I think serve students' and society's interests more. I care about students in schools like I care about customers in businesses: I view their needs and interests as paramount for guiding the organizations' direction. Faculty matter, as do employees, the community, and others, but…

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Seeing my inspiration, Inside The Actors Studio, live

If you've talked to me in the past few years, you've heard how watching Inside The Actors Studio inspired me to learn how actors came to excel so much at skills leaders in other areas of life work hard to achieve but rarely do. On top of that, many great actors on the show dropped out, were kicked out, or otherwise didn't finish much school. Meanwhile, graduates of Ivy League business schools who studied leadership at the pinnacle of our educational system didn't measure up. The schools didn't even teach whatever the actors learned. My curiosity led me to discover…

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What can you recover from?

Anyone can plan something. It's harder to do it. If things went by plan they'd be easier. If you expected things to go by plan, you'd try more things. The problem is the unforeseen things and recovering from them. The more you can recover from unforeseen things, the more you'll try. The more you try the more you'll do. What can you recover from? How much can you recover from?

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Op/ed Fridays: Academics studying leadership versus leadership

A reader sent me an article in the New York Times called "Rethinking Work." It began, "HOW satisfied are we with our jobs?" and continued about polls about job satisfaction and various people's views on work, implying we should think about work differently---we like work less for money and more for intrinsic reward. The author is a psychology professor. Articles like this come out all the time. I'm glad academics think about these points, but he doesn't suggest anything to do. He just writes. I suppose the writing isn't boring, but what's the point of suggesting things could be better…

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Leadership lessons from Frances Hesselbein, part 3

Over lunch Frances described to me her background. I had wondered how she got started, why when the CEO of Ford, Alan Mulaly, gave her a car, she picked it up near Pittsburgh. She told me about growing up near there and going to the University of Pittsburgh. If I remember right, she didn't finish. It struck me because she is yet another prominent leader who didn't graduate college. She's surrounded by the best and brightest---leading them, responding to their requests for advice---and didn't get there through traditional education. One of my main inspirations for teaching and coaching leadership end…

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Op/Ed Fridays: “How Much Is a C.E.O. Worth?” misses the point

Everyone outside large corporations believes they pay their CEOs more than necessary for their performance, or at least a huge majority. In the latest of a million articles on the topic, "How Much Is a C.E.O. Worth? America’s Confused Approach to Pay," the New York Times continues to ask ineffective questions about changing anything. Like most articles, it asks "Do corporate chief executives make too much money, or too little?" and other questions of value. We already know there is no absolute measure of worth. Corporations pay what they negotiate with CEOs, the same as with other employees. Nowhere does…

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Op-Ed Friday: Men and learning leadership

At a meeting to promote the teaching of leadership a couple months ago, I saw several proposals to support women pursuing leadership but none for men. I sensed that others there felt that since men held nearly all corporate and government positions of authority that men had greater access to positions of leadership. I didn't feel comfortable bringing it up, but I found a few perspectives missing. Advantages existing for men to attain leadership positions doesn't make the average man happier or make his life easier. Most men have no access the corporate or political power of any sort. Actually,…

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Why leadership and entrepreneurship exercises work

It sucks when you're playing a team sport and you get shut down trying to cut to get open, the other team scores on you, you throw into an interception or some mistake like that. Few of us enjoy admitting to faults, so we often make excuses that the problem was with your team mates, the sun, the equipment, or something out of your control. When you run drills or exercises in practice, it's another story. Effective ones are designed to focus on particular skills. A cutting drill, for example, focuses on cutting. You might have to run the same…

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How to make a phone call with someone you don’t know but want to help you

[This post is part of a series on Communication Skills Exercises for Business and Life. 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.] I just got off the phone with a client who was preparing for a call with someone important to help her. She was nervous because of his status and not sure how to make the call work. She typically would talk too much about herself, which didn't get the results she wanted of the other person wanting to…

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How much time did you waste on that project you loved?

People often ask me if I use my physics education today. You face similar questions from others, I'm sure. You probably ask them of yourself. Nobody's life follows a straight path from birth to where they are. I loved the field, but I don't publish or do physics experiments. I still love the field and can't believe everyone doesn't study it more in school. But I teach and coach leadership and entrepreneurship now. Was the six years of graduate school worth it? I don't look at the question that way anymore. I don't find evaluating the past useful. What I…

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You don’t have to overcome adversity to achieve a lot

I keep hearing people say that if only they lived in a time of greater crisis, they could have achieved more. They look at George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Gandhi, and other famous leaders and notice they emerged through crises. I read a Harvard Business Review article implying people have to go through crucibles to develop as leaders. You don't have to overcome adversity to achieve a lot. You don't need an outside challenge. I think people don't look for counterexamples because it's easier to blame external factors than to take responsibility for realizing your dreams. It's like…

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Know your geese!

A friend and colleague visited a couple weeks ago. He invited me to breakfast with another friend of his who happened to be an incredibly successful founder and CEO of a business related to a project of mine. You don't expect to make such valuable connections. We made a great connection and may find ways to collaborate. I met the visiting friend in the first place through another guy I didn't know well, but who suggested we meet. He also put me in touch with my book agent. Agents are notoriously hard to find and create relationships with, especially at…

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Involving people attracts and engages them. Pitching makes them evaluate.

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] You wouldn't believe how much access you have to people, both the number of people and how much each one will listen to and help you. This principle surprises and helps people more than the other three. They're used to asking people for their opinions on their…

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Better than a great idea is an okay idea plus listening to your market plus flexibility

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] The most common reason I hear from people who want to start projects or companies but don't for why they don't is that they haven't come up with a great idea. I've written about this common myth of entrepreneurship. People look at successful companies and project based…

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More important than personality is skills you can learn

[This post is part of a series on principles to create ideas people want to help you with and creating a helpful, supportive community around you. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view that series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] People with great soft skills seem to dominate many areas in business . I think of leadership and sales first, though also entrepreneurship. People erroneously see people who succeed in those areas as born, not made. Or they at least ask if great leaders or salespeople are…

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Influence and persuasion class starts Saturday

This Saturday begins my class at General Assembly on influence and persuasion. Register here We call the class "Entrepreneurial Sales" because it teaches entrepreneurial skills and uses a model of selling for its structure, but it's about broader concepts of influence, persuasion, value, and building relationships based on understanding others' needs. I used to think sales was part of the business other people did---something low-level that used pressure and made people feel bad, like selling used cars or souvenirs in tourist traps. Boy was I wrong! Sales is also Getting hired (selling your labor) Hiring people (selling your company's culture)…

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I don’t remember feeling this much passion for a project since co-founding my first company in the late 90s

I recently wrote how I finished recording the audio for the online leadership course I'm creating. I also posted about the leadership course I start teaching at NYU in a couple weeks. Both courses put into practice material that I've compiled for years, maybe a decade or so. This week I'll start posting the interview I did with Chris, the other guy in the recording for the online course. I played it for a couple friends in person and they described Chris's results as spine-tingling, based on his progress. I don't remember feeling this much passion for a project since…

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My next seminar, January 12 at The Yard in NYC!

My next leadership seminar will be January 12 at The Yard, a premier office space and coworking community designed to support business growth whose environment promotes creativity, collaboration, and connections. Perfect for my seminar! If you've thought about attending one of my seminars, this will be a great chance in a beautiful space, conveniently located. Click here for testimonials.   HOW TO LEAD PEOPLE ...so they want you to lead them again. ~ Leadership Workshop ~ Click here to register Why you should attend You’ve ascended to a position of leadership, but how can you ensure that the people you…

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My scientific and engineering view of coaching and teaching leadership

Science is the study of nature, looking for patterns, to predict results. For the moment I'm not approaching leadership with the institutional view of science with researchers applying for grants from the National Science Foundation to do double-blind controlled experiments for peer-reviewed publication, though I've had a few graduate students approach me to do research like that. Here's a simpler view: science turns observations about nature into models and predictions about the future. It's simplified, but I think captures an important part of science. Thousands of years ago people noticed that what went up came back down. That's an observation…

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Join Joshua Spodek’s leadership workshop, Saturday December 6 in Soho

I've been invited to lead a leadership workshop at a great location in Manhattan Saturday, December 6. If you like my material, want to lead better, and like the testimonials of recent attendees, come to the seminar. Below is from their announcement. Click here to register! "How to lead people so they want you to lead them again" by Joshua Spodek Saturday, December 6, 2014 10am to 5pm Soho - NYC Previous University Presentations Columbia, Harvard, MIT, NYU-Stern, INSEAD, New School, New York Academy of Sciences   Previous Coaching Clients Include Start-up Founders as well as Employees of  McKinsey, Bain, BCG,…

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A reader shares a genius business idea in action

A reader responded to "Another genius business idea: Communities refurbishing their subway platforms" to describe the idea already in action in San Francisco: Hello Joshua, I want to share with you the concept of property and business improvement districts and how one in San Francisco beautified the plaza around the Castro Street subway station. I'm sharing this as a real-world example you might find interesting. The gist is that a group of commercial properties (or even residential ones) vote to form a district, levy an assessment on themselves, and form a board of directors to manage it. The district concept…

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The problem determines the solution

"Which is more important as a leader, to work alone or to work in groups?" I heard that question asked of a panel of business leaders last week. The panelists all answered something like "in this day and age you have to be able to work in groups. That's where you get everything done" with some acknowledgment that you had to be able to work solo too sometimes. As soon as the moderator asked the question I thought, "You're asking about solutions in the abstract. The problem determines the solution." You can best solve problems that take solo work to…

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A successful testimonial on leading someone so she wanted to be led again

An attendee of one of my seminars on How To Lead People So They Want You To Lead Them Again wrote to her seminar-mates and me the results of her putting what she learned into practice. She had mentioned during the seminar an employee she had written off as unmanageable, who consistently disregarded her agreed-on priorities in favor of less important tasks and showed uninspired morale. Maybe you've worked with such people or felt like being that way yourself when your leaders didn't inspire you. The attendee also got an MBA at Columbia, which is how she found me. She…

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Another genius business idea: Communities refurbishing their subway platforms

Here’s another post in my Genius Business Idea series. My goal in this series is to show how entrepreneurial opportunities are everywhere, contrary to the common myth people who say they want to start a venture but don't: that they haven't found a great idea yet. This project is challenging, more for bureaucratic reasons than technical, but there is ample precedent of people overcoming similar challenges in New York. Read below for a list of examples. If you don't live here, I expect you'd have an easier time than we would. This one came from talking to a city employee…

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See Joshua Spodek on leadership at General Assembly, Sunday October 19

Attendees keep giving me great ratings, so General Assembly keeps inviting me back. If you like entrepreneurship and you don’t know General Assembly, you should. They teach great courses and have built a great community around teaching relevant skills. On Sunday, October 19, 10am-5pm, I’ll lead a seminar with General Assembly on leadership in New York City. Register here, you’ll be glad you did. Here is the announcement (they use short descriptions, for a fuller description, see this announcement from an earlier event): Lead the Way: Effective Leadership Techniques Joshua Spodek Adjunct Professor at NYU-Poly About This Workshop You’ve ascended…

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