Skip to main content

No Room for Small Dreams

The story of Israel is inspiring. And this is a story by Shimon Peres, one of the founding fathers of the country, so to say. After getting a recommendation on reading this book, it waited on my shelf for its turn to arrive.

The book itself is worth a read. More importantly, here are my takeaways on what it means to be a leader from this book.

For one, A reader must prepare hard. Work hard. In different situations.
Be Prepared for any opportunity that might cross her way.
Listen; listen well; listen actively...
Take risk: it is only after we see failure that we will know if we misjudged the risk.
Open new possibilities
Optimism and naivete are not one and the same...
Make the hard decisions that leadership demands (and therein lies one of the most important tenets - as a leader you cannot escape facing and making tough decisions. If all one had to do was to take easy decisions, one does not need leaders.)
Standing still is not an option, despite many successes
Seek and have a mentor with whom you can discuss when you feel 'alone'
Innovation is always an uphill climb. Go after an 'impossible' dream. Austerity cannot be an obstacle for audacity. We need to set our gaze higher than our temporary limitations.

And Israel having been a victim of terrorism for long, this is a line I really loved: Leaders would be wise to remember that when there is a gun to you head, you are not the negotiator, you are the hostage. Holding firm to such a position demands a willingness to make dangerous and difficult choices.

Sidenote: The book is written in an unassuming manner, almost prosaic. I wish it had a little more 'Israel' in it.

Labels

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Be Civil. Make nice!

Popular posts from this blog

The man who saved Pumpelsdrop

This was a story we had in college if I am not mistaken. Perhaps it was in school, but a delightful story it was. The story goes somewhat like this ( reproduced from here ), but the college version we had was slightly different from this.  I t was a dull, gloomy and a depressing morning in a town named Pumpelsdrop in northern England. The Great Depression had brought all the businesses to a standstill. The bored automobile dealer was spending time alone, as usual. But, this seems to be an unusual morning as an odd entity (customer) appeared on the horizon. A man in a bright suit walks up to the dealer and says, "I need to buy a Rolls Royce Phantom II. We have a business conference coming up and I need to impress my customers". Then proceeds to pay 10% of the deal with a single check for 2000 pounds. The rest he says will pay when he takes the delivery.   The auto dealer was stunned. He was delighted to hear that someone is holding a business conference of some kind and ...
Post a Comment
Read more

And the unconference happened

 Most conferences have an agenda. No, not the stated agenda, but an agenda of marketing, airtime to sponsors, ensuring the past and future customers are invited, of ensuring that the "stars" of the industry are invited and attention showered of them. All in all it is a your scratch my back, I scratch your back syndrome. Some of these become cliques and claques and therefore the real point behind a conference is lost. And then there is the unconference - organised and run by the alumni of the ISABS ODCP program. And as the name suggests, this is truly an un-conference organised by the alumni, for the alumni. No funders - except the alumni themselves. No sponsors. Just the team.  I havent seen a more tastefully organised conference (yes, its an unconference).  To begin with - the location - not a typical star hotel, but an outdoorsy place. The food - simple. The welcome - personal. It was like a homecoming. The setting was warm and welcoming. It was a smaller conference. Ju...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why does elearning exist?

 Elearning is one of those niches that does not deserve to exist. Yes, it was a novelty 20 years ago, but not now. It cannot exist. But somehow it does. Disclaimer: I used to head a content team once upon a time. And I used to ask those whom I hired - tell me the last thing you learnt from an e-learning. The answer is - pretty much nothing (and this is a good decade ago).  Why?  If you want to learn a recipe, you go to Youtube, or Reels or something like that. If you are terribly old fashioned - as in, you read - then you go to a website and read the recipe and make it.  Most other things you learn by doing or learning on the job or asking an expert.  If you have to learn something in depth, then there are other ways.  So, where does e-learning fit in all this? E-learning is one of those products that the customer hates, but has no choice, because someone has decided it is the best way. For instance, you have to learn a new CRM or some other product - you w...
Post a Comment
Read more