Working hard does not mean you get things done. Getting things done doesn’t necessarily require working hard. I waste time and I find myself often inefficient, but people say I’ve achieved a lot. Whether I’ve achieved a lot or not is opinion, but if they’re right, it’s because I know my priorities. I allow myself inefficiency on relatively unimportant things. The important things I don’t slack on. The important things[…] Keep reading →

Saturday’s talk on North Korea at Columbia Business School went great — a full room, an attentive audience, and great questions at the end. I didn’t leave as much time for questions as I wish I had, but the organizer told me people told her they liked the talk a lot. Several people asked for copies of the slides so I’m posting them here instead of sending multiple emails.

By any measure of speeches or leadership, Martin Luther King’s “Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam” must rank highly, no matter what your thoughts on the politics of the situation. The text (text here) is eloquent, erudite, colorful, and informative. His delivery was rousing, engaging, inspiring, and on par with any other of his speeches. (The link in case the video isn’t showing — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfGsVvnvA9w) As effective[…] Keep reading →

Everybody agrees nobody is perfect. We all have our faults. Yet some emerge as leaders and outstanding successes. I’ve come to believe leaders lead and successes succeed not in spite of their faults or weaknesses, but because of them. The things themselves don’t matter as much as the emotions we attach to them. Attach shame to something inherent about you and people will see a part of you as shameful.[…] Keep reading →

I see inequality based on sex, skin color, and other lines in my society, yet I’ve met almost no one who overtly supports sexism, racism, or other lines. And among sexist, racist, or otherwise divisive people, most seem motivated out of ignorance, which seems easily remedied. Usually I say that systems perpetuate inequality so people who participate in those systems inadvertently support them. I recently noticed an odd effect that[…] Keep reading →

Joseph Ferris, who took the most breathtaking and evocative pictures of North Korea I’ve seen — see them on Flickr (I recommend watching the whole slide show) — reviewed my book, Understanding North Korea: Demystifying the World’s Most Misunderstood Country, in his blog, An American in North Korea. He wrote I admit that I was quite skeptical to learn that on his return he wrote a book on North Korea,[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before about strategy. I’ve been thinking about presenting it because of my talk at Columbia Business School on the 24th. This decision tree — Figure 1.3 from Competition Demystified — summarizes how to start creating your strategy. It’s written in business lingo, but it applies to strategy in many other arenas, like politics, war, law, and some sports, for example. It applies to large businesses, for which the[…] Keep reading →