Marina Gorbis's Blog, page 1393

What It’s Really Like to be a Female CEO

CEO DearestWhy PepsiCo CEO Indra K. Nooyi Can't Have It All The Atlantic

Sheryl Sandberg may have claimed one of the catchiest titles of the decade for a whither-women book — Lean In — but Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi has a pretty good one too, if she ever wants to go there: Her book could be called We’re Screwed, which is a memorable line from a memorable Q&A with the owner of The Atlantic, David Bradley, before an audience at the Aspen Ideas Festival. Just as women in the corporate world are entering management, in many cases their parents are becoming needy elders, their kids are growing into needy adolescents, and with midlife bearing down, their husbands are often reverting into needy teenagers, she says. “So we’re screwed…we cannot have it all.”



The leader of the world’s second-largest food and beverage company tells a classic CEO-mom story of her receptionist filling in when her daughter Tyra calls to ask permission to play a video game. Mom can’t come to the phone, but the receptionist knows to ask certain questions, such as: Have you finished your homework? Once Tyra gives the right answers, the receptionist allows her to play Nintendo for a half-hour. “If you don't develop mechanisms with your secretaries, with the extended office, with everybody around you, it cannot work,” Nooyi says, because the corporation’s demands on the boss are overwhelming. Her husband Raj always said that Nooyi’s priorities were PepsiCo, PepsiCo, PepsiCo, their two kids, Nooyi’s mom, “and then at the bottom of the list is me.” She adds, with a laugh: He should be happy he’s on the list at all. —Andy O’Connell

Worst to First What Is the Worst Thing You’ve Ever Made? Pacific Standard

Anyone who has ever tried really hard to make difficult, worthwhile things, whether businesses or books or pancakes, has a “worst” in his or her past. This is a piece about those worsts. Jen Doll talks to nine people about their complicated feelings around these (usually early) attempts at greatness. Most of the interviewees are writers, but the stories resonate beyond the literary world. She discovers that, by and large, worsts are viewed with more affection than revulsion, because they mark the path from apprentice to real practitioner. They’re the scars we’re proud to have earned. The revulsion is there too, though: Author Philipp Meyer describes his first unpublished novel as “600 pages of incoherent nonsense.” —Andy O’Connell

Religion and the Corporation Could the Hobby Lobby Ruling Unleash a 'Parade of Horribles'?Knowledge@Wharton

Regardless of where you stand on this week's 5–4 Hobby Lobby ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court, which said that closely-held for-profit companies don’t have to provide the full range of birth-control options to employees, this interview with Wharton legal studies and ethics professor Amy Sepinwall is worth reading (or listening to, on podcast). It covers a lot of ground (including the "horribles" referred to in the headline), but particularly noteworthy are her thoughts around what we expect from companies.



The notion in the dissenting opinion that profit is the central purpose of a for-profit company is "a very cynical take on what corporations are about," Sepinwall says. She points out that many companies engage in philanthropy, help the environment, and take care of their employees. "If we're going to celebrate those aspects of the corporation," she continues, "then I think it's important to recognize that some of the convictions that a corporation might have are religiously motivated and, within limits, to accommodate those convictions." But making sure the leaders of a company do, in fact, harbor those convictions is another, trickier story — particularly if taking a religious exemption offers the company the prospect of saving money.

Well, Sort OfFlexible Working Extended to All Employees in UKThe Guardian

Britain may be on the brink of a massive sociological and economic experiment — or nothing of the sort — as a law goes into effect this week giving all UK workers the right to request flexible working hours, a privilege once extended only to caregivers. The law allows any worker to request nonstandard working hours to accommodate further education, child care, volunteering in the local community, working part-time, or even just avoiding rush-hour commuting.



“Modern businesses know that flexible working boosts productivity and staff morale, and helps them keep their top talent so that they can grow,” said Deputy Prime Minister Nicholas Clegg. Still, many of Britain’s small businesses already offer flexible hours, and as sweeping as it might sound, the law grants only the right to ask. Employers retain the right to say no, from which there is no appeal. That leaves it to corporate leaders to decide how much of a risk they might incur from sticking with face time and what they would stand to gain or lose from managing the hassles of offbeat schedules. —Andrea Ovans

Take a LookVisualizing AlgorithmsMike Bostock

This blog post by New York Times graphics editor Mike Bostock was enthusiastically sent around HBR this week by a colleague. In the post, adapted from a recent talk at Eyeo 2014, Bostock explains, in a way that even I could understand, how computer algorithms work. He offers a host of examples along the way. Perhaps most important, he notes that "algorithms are also a reminder that visualization is more than a tool for finding patterns in data. Visualization leverages the human visual system to augment human intellect: We can use it to better understand these important abstract processes, and perhaps other things, too." So kick back with a cold one and spend an hour with this beautifully designed piece. It may help you better think about visualizations in whatever business you may be in.

BONUS BITSPeople and Data

The Incorporated Woman (The Economist)
Facebook and Engineering the Public (Medium)
Astro-Matic Baseball (Sports Illustrated)

The Hidden Enemy of Productive Conversations

We have our work cut out for us when it comes to navigating complex problems, in large part because we are hard-wired to seek certainty as quickly as possible. The research of decision scientists reveals that our best strategy for tackling these problems is to harness cognitive diversity, because groups do better than individuals, including those with the highest IQs. Complex problems are characterized by confusing systems of causal interactions; untangling these requires multiple different points of view. Diversity, as Scott Page puts it, trumps ability.

But the benefits of cognitive diversity do not materialize automatically — they have to be engineered. And groups are just as vulnerable as individuals to the number one enemy of productive thinking: path dependence.

Path dependence is the tendency for things (such as events, belief systems, personalities, evolution, and conversations) to unfold in ways that are constrained by the parameters of the path they are on. It represents the enormous influence of the past on the future. The first typewriters established a keyboard that has became so ingrained that we are still using it, despite how clumsy and inefficient it is — we have not deviated from the QWERTY path. Path dependence is why police officers do not switch occupations mid-career to become advertising executives, why Christians rarely convert to Judaism, and why group discussions often move inexorably to conclusions that do not represent the fullness of diverse perspectives that cognitive diversity offers. It is fueled by self-reinforcing behavior — feedback loops that reinforce and amplify. It permeates every conversation, board meeting, executive team meeting, strategic off-site, jury deliberation, and political agenda.

Path dependence is not always a bad thing. It is simply a fact of nature, an instance of how things work and how a random event evolves so that it is eventually not completely random. But because path dependence limits the options available for consideration, it can be problematic when the wrong path dominates. When thinking does not stray from certain parameters, creativity and results are sacrificed. The more we’re aware of the paths that constrain our thinking, the less captive we are to them. To generate deeper and more creative insights, leaders have to push a group’s thinking beyond the narrow paths that otherwise take hold.

Managers need to be mindful of the numerous contributors to path dependence. For example, the starting point of a discussion has a disproportionate influence on the path the conversation takes. When a point of view is asserted, it can gain momentum through the support of a few, carrying it down the path to firm conclusion without ever being sufficiently challenged. A constricted path also occurs when a strong counter-position is tabled without being challenged. Ideas can become just as ingrained when they are not explicitly critiqued as when they are explicitly endorsed.

In exploring the problem of groupthink, the research of Charlan Nemeth reveals how easily “majority thinking” squeezes out “minority thinking.” Even when individuals are personally persuaded by minority dissent, they tend to support the majority view in public. Nemeth challenges the notion of free-flowing brainstorming, citing experiments which show that the “no idea is a bad idea” form of brainstorming generates less creativity than the kind where participants are encouraged to actively challenge and debate each other. In one of her experiments, groups who were encouraged to “debate” a problem generated 16% more ideas than groups who were encouraged to brainstorm without criticizing one another.

Discussion paths can become so self-reinforcing that Cass Sunstein points out that teams often become emboldened by consensus, arriving at more definitive, extreme conclusions than the individuals’ going-in positions. “Group polarization” occurs when initial views are accentuated by discussion, generating momentum on a single path without any counterbalancing influences. He concludes that avoiding polarization requires a structured process of deliberation to ensure participants are exposed to alternative lines of thinking.

Structured deliberation is key. Left to our own devices, even the most diverse groups of thinkers interact in sloppy, unstructured ways. Without intervention, team discussions tend to be highly path-dependent, limited to the most passionately argued opinions, the views of perceived experts, and the perspective of the majority. Complex problems require discussions that take flexible paths and cover expansive territory. High quality conversations require stewardship. Leaders need to create and encourage constructive dissent to open up new possibilities, expand insight, and generate better decisions.

Constructive dissent depends on two conditions: genuine independence of thought and constructive engagement between team members.  Leaders must encourage their teams to speak freely and independently, to correct one another’s errors and build on good ideas, and to allow the insights of others to deepen their own thinking.

Flexible, expansive conversations that resist path-dependent thinking are the best (and only) way to navigate an increasingly complex world. And fostering them is one of the most important jobs of our leaders.

Insurance Isn’t Safe from Digital Upheaval

Today, almost every industry is vulnerable to the effects of digitization and to what Accenture calls “Big Bang Disruption.” In Big Bang disruption, rule-changing innovation leads to the creation of entire product lines (or the destruction of whole markets) essentially overnight, with disrupters coming from outside the industry that they are disrupting. Technological innovations ranging from smartphones to Big Data analytics to cloud computing make it easier than ever for new challengers – especially those unburdened by legacy systems or brick-and-mortar networks – to gain access to high-quality market information and mass distribution. New services can quickly go from trial to large-scale rollout and massive adoption, and established players can fall quickly by the wayside; think of how mobile GPS applications have taken the market by storm.

The industries most susceptible to disruption are those selling information-based services that can be delivered digitally – and a perfect example is the insurance industry.

We estimate that up to $400 billion in insurance premiums could change hands within the industry over the next year. According to a global survey we conducted, more than two-thirds of customers would consider buying insurance products from non-insurers, and 23% would consider buying insurance from online service providers such as Google or Amazon.

And outsiders are responding, already experimenting with digital approaches to insurance. Tencent and Alibaba, the two leading Chinese Internet companies, recently announced a collaboration with insurer Ping An to offer insurance products online. Google bought U.K. insurance aggregator beatthatquote.com in 2011 and has since launched price comparison sites in the U.K., Germany, and France.

In the life and retirement services area, start-ups such as LearnVest offer personalized financial advice at fixed prices that most middle-class consumers can afford. LearnVest clients have access to a dedicated certified financial planner who can help them better manage their finances and achieve their financial goals, including budget planning, loan optimization, and investment allocation advice.

Of course, it takes more than market research and distribution to be an insurer. And new players face high (but not insurmountable) regulatory barriers, particularly in regard to capital requirements. Many insurers have spent decades establishing well-known and well-respected brands. They have important “hard” assets that are difficult to replicate, like large investment portfolios to back up claims payouts, complex back-office systems, and expertise.

These assets, however, will lose value if insurers don’t develop digital capabilities to meet the changing demands of their customers. At the strategic level, insurers, like other service providers, need to move from simply selling products to delivering “useful experiences.” Our research has shown that customers are willing to pay more for better advice and coverage that is carefully tailored to their individual needs. Customers also want insurance providers to not only insure risk, but to help them manage risk. And the proliferation of connected devices and the “Internet of Things” opens up new opportunities to insurers interested in meeting these needs.

While not new, telematics and usage-based insurance will grow rapidly in the coming years, as consumer acceptance of personal data collection is growing. Insurethebox, a U.K. online carrier that uses telematics to collect its customers’ driving information and reward them for driving safely, acquired 200,000 clients within three years after its launch in 2010.

“Pay-as-you-drive” insurance is a clear example of the growing collaboration between insurers and customers; customers share information and insurers provide better service and lower rates. Smart homes can already send alerts about security breaches and physical threats such as fires or burst pipes. State Farm announced late last year that it is teaming up with ADT, a home security company, to provide a special offer on a home security solution to its policyholders, who may also qualify for home insurance discounts. And in Kenya, weather stations are used to provide farmers with weather index-based insurance coverage. The system enables automatic claim payments based on data from the monitoring stations, which reduces the number of costly farm visits.

For senior management in insurance, and any other industry, the big question concerning digital disruption is not If, but When. With internal and external competitors using innovative technologies to launch products that better fit consumers’ demands, company leaders need to take pre-emptive action or risk the same fate as the pay telephone.

Most companies have taken steps toward “digitization.” They are using digital technologies to increase their own efficiency and to improve the customer experience. The next step is what we call “digitalization” – using digital technologies to create new business models, products, and services, even those outside their traditional businesses. By realizing that digital technologies present an opportunity, and by getting digitalization right, large established companies have a chance of not only surviving, but becoming disruptors themselves, capable of thriving in the new environments they create.

Make Your Marketing Content Useful

Marketing messages are for consumption, just like products. Your audience will value your brand and engage with it if you create content that’s more meaningful than all the listicles and other hackneyed advice out there — content that’s worthy of publication in its own right. That’s not to say you should recycle your white papers and expect people to ferret out what’s useful. Good content meets audiences where they are, and it’s tailored to them.

John Battelle alluded to all this in his 2009 prediction that agencies would become publishers, and vice versa, and I just knew he was right. So I began writing books and digital content to help my firm’s target audience address a pressing need — creating and delivering effective business presentations. That decision transformed my company. Until that point, we had done no formal marketing. In the few years since, we have experimented with almost every possible publishing channel.

One of the first things I learned is that readers don’t like it when you try to sell them something. If the content itself isn’t useful, people won’t consume it and your pitch will be lost on them anyway. You can sell more overtly through other avenues, but trust that your readers are smart enough to associate the value of your message with your brand. They’ll know where to look when they need the goods or services you provide.

For example, take Red Bull, the energy drink maker. Though it uses traditional marketing tactics, such as sponsorships and commercials, it also produces The Red Bulletin, a monthly magazine (print and digital) that delivers stories about sports, adventure, music, and other topics its target audience cares about. Whether or not you purchase Red Bull energy drinks, you can connect with the brand and lifestyle.

Offering content like this for free doesn’t mean taking a loss. My firm initially released my book Resonate as a multi-touch digital offering on iTunes for $17.99. When we changed the price to free, people downloaded more books in the first week than we sold the entire previous year. Because it got a lot of traffic, the book was promoted on the iBooks homepage, which exposed it to an even broader audience. And our business saw a huge bump in inbound project queries, which trumped the revenue we would have received from book sales.

Distributing through channels with analytics is key, though. In the traditional publishing model, the publisher and reseller retain the names of your readers, but when you are the publisher of your message, you get “paid” in loyalty and data — lots of data. Use marketing software to make sense of all that information and to look for patterns in who is consuming your content, which pieces people spend the most time reading, and so on. If the content is compelling enough, readers will willingly give their e-mail addresses to get it. That’s more valuable than cash, because unlike a transaction, ongoing communication creates and strengthens connection.

The more shareable the media, the better. If you create a great slide, for instance, people will pass it around and reuse it. It’s a self-contained, easy-to-copy bit of insight. One of our publishing experiments was to release a full-color, full-length book for free in PowerPoint. The book, Slidedocs, established guidelines for using presentation software as a publishing tool, and the numbers showed that the market was hungry for that information. To date, it has yielded 145,288 views on SlideShare, 100,000 views on our website, and 21,420 e-mail addresses. We offered a piece of useful content, and we were rewarded with an outstanding new community of fans, followers, and friends.

A good book seems to sell itself. Ideally, marketing content should function the same way. Your material will be read — and spread — if it’s useful to others. So find out what your target customers are craving, and feed it to them.

More U.S. Parents Tell College-Age Children: You’re on Your Own

American parents are more likely now than in recent years to say that their children should pay for college: The proportion of adults saying their offspring should pay for most college costs rose from 27% to 32% over the past two years, with those advocating that children pay every cent rising from 12% to 15%, says CNN. Accordingly, the proportion of parents planning to help their children pay for college declined 4 percentage points, from 81% last year to about 77% this year. Yet 96% of survey respondents said they continue to view a college education as valuable.

The Cost of Continuously Checking Email

Suppose each time you ran low on an item in your kitchen—olive oil, bananas, napkins—your instinctive response was to drop everything and race to the store. How much time would you lose? How much money would you squander on gas? What would happen to your productivity?

We all recognize the inefficiency of this approach. And yet surprisingly, we often work in ways that are equally wasteful.

The reason we keep a shopping list and try to keep supermarket trips to a minimum is that it’s easy to see the cost of driving to the store every time we crave a bag of potato chips. What is less obvious to us, however, is the cognitive price we pay each time we drop everything and switch activities to satisfy a mental craving.

Shifting our attention from one task to another, as we do when we’re monitoring email while trying to read a report or craft a presentation, disrupts our concentration and saps our focus. Each time we return to our initial task, we use up valuable cognitive resources reorienting ourselves. And all those transitional costs add up. Research shows that when we are deeply engrossed in an activity, even minor distractions can have a profound effect. According to a University of California-Irvine study, regaining our initial momentum following an interruption can take, on average, upwards of 20 minutes.

Multitasking, as many studies have shown, is a myth. A more accurate account of what happens when we tell ourselves we’re multitasking is that we’re rapidly switching between activities, degrading our clarity and depleting our mental energy. And the consequences can be surprisingly serious . An experiment conducted at the University of London found that we lose as many as 10 IQ points when we allow our work to be interrupted by seemingly benign distractions like emails and text messages.

The trouble, of course, is that multitasking is enjoyable. It’s fun to indulge your curiosity. Who knows what that next email, tweet or text message holds in store? Finding out provides immediate gratification. In contrast, resisting distraction and staying on-task requires discipline and mental effort.

And yet each time we shift our focus, it’s as if we’re taking a trip to the store. Creativity expert Todd Henry calls it a “task-shifting penalty.” We pay a mental tax that diminishes our ability to produce high-level work.

So what are we to do?

One tactic is to change our environment to move temptation further away: shut down your email program or silence your phone.  It’s a lot easier to stay on task when you’re not continuously fending off mental cravings. This approach doesn’t require going off the grid for a full day. Even as little as 30 minutes can have a major impact on your productivity.

The alternative, which most of us consider the norm, is the cognitive equivalent of dieting in a pastry shop. We can all muster the willpower to resist the temptations, but doing so comes with considerable costs to our limited supply of willpower.

Another worthwhile approach is to cluster similar activities together, keeping ramp-up time to a minimum. Instead of scattering phone calls, meetings, administrative work, and emails throughout your day, try grouping related tasks so that there are fewer transitions. Read reports, memos and articles one after another. Schedule meetings back-to-back. Keep a list of administrative tasks and do them all in a single weekly session. If possible, try limiting email to 2 or 3 predetermined times—for example 8:30, 12:00 and 4:30—instead of responding to them the moment they arrive.

In some jobs, multitasking is unavoidable. Some of us truly do need to stay connected to our clients, colleagues, and managers. Here, it’s worth noting that limiting disruptions is not an all or nothing proposition. Even small changes can make a big difference.

Remember: it’s up to you to protect your cognitive resources. The more you do to minimize task-switching over the course of the day, the more mental bandwidth you’ll have for activities that actually matter.

Before You Start a Business, Listen to Your Ego

When I meet entrepreneurs I always ask them why they started their companies and they almost always say something like “because I had a great idea the world needed.” But when you peel back the layers you discover far different motives – motives they don’t want to acknowledge because they’re directly related to primal desires and fears.  Yet the well-being of their businesses depends on their understanding those real motives.

A talented coder I know — let’s call him Abe — is characteristic of many other talented individuals who start a business saying that they had a great idea the world needed. Abe’s talent attracted investors but he deeply disliked babysitting customers and supervising non-coding positions. He was miserable. His investors fired him.  Only after he was fired did Abe’s soul-searching lead him to realize that his real motivation was to work only on projects he enjoyed. Only after the fact did he realize that by bringing in outside investors his life became exactly the opposite of what he wanted, as he was forced to work only on what everyone else wanted him to.

A serial entrepreneur I know, a brilliant mind coupled with a difficult personality we’ll call Bruce, burned through four startups until he acknowledged his powerful motivation, which led to his success on his fifth try. Bruce had initially started companies when he thought he saw opportunities to make a lot of money, only to professionally implode each time the opportunity proved elusive. Consulting an analyst after the fourth failure helped Bruce realize that it wasn’t making money that was he really wanted; he needed to satisfy his hyper-competitive need to be top-dog at whatever he did. He needed to start a business in an area where his skills were world-class rather than simply targeting the latest lucrative industry, playing to his strengths and fulfilling his desire to compete aggressively.  Understanding his need to be top-dog also helped Bruce realize that he wanted to get all the help and VC money he could to help him grow his enterprise as fast as possible. Bruce’s fifth startup now has a billion-dollar valuation and he could care less that his VCs will make a major share of the money.

I personally could not have succeeded as an entrepreneur had I not realized, with the help of an executive coach, that I had a powerful motivation of “needing to be needed.” This unrealized motivation had led me to exhibit behaviors that made me a poor team player when others did not ask for my input and advice. Once I realized my core motivation it changed my life, driving me to be an entrepreneur in an area where my expertise and advice were highly regarded.  At my startup, iSuppli, I created an organization structure that revolved around weekly status meetings and quarterly business reviews that allowed me to feel clued in and integral to every part of the business, without micromanaging or holding back our growth. This one insight was central in my creating a company whose valuation had topped $100 million when it was bought in 2010.

In these cases and in virtually all cases, the motivations that drive an entrepreneur to prevail are typically selfish. Unfortunately, selfish motivations are hard to acknowledge because we all want to justify our actions in socially acceptable terms.  On the other hand, honestly acknowledging your selfish motivations is typically very empowering and helps to focus you on the things that need to be done to fulfill your desired goal. An important side effect of acknowledging your selfish motivations is that it will give other people more confidence in the success of your endeavor, since they understand why you are taking on the challenge.

An entrepreneur’s true motivation can thwart their success if it is left unstated or conflicts with the interests of the business. Because changing your deepest motivations is almost impossible, you must find a way to put them to work for you by aligning your motivation with your new venture.

The Fukushima Meltdown That Didn’t Happen

Charles Casto, recently retired from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on how smart leadership saved the second Fukushima power plant. For more, read the July–August 2014 issue of HBR.

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Boards Still Don’t See the Value of Digital

Companies across the world are ramping up their digital initiatives, according to a new survey from McKinsey, with the C-suite increasingly leading the way. “Digitization has become a critical asset in many companies’ quest for growth,” write the report’s authors, noting the increased involvement by CEOs and other top executives.

There’s only one problem. Boards don’t seem interested.

When it comes to digital initiatives, the board of directors seems to be lagging. The vast majority of survey respondents indicated that their company’s board not only wasn’t directly engaged in digital projects, but was not even a supportive sponsor.

Perhaps most troubling, board support for digital projects has barely budged in the last three years, unlike support from senior executives which has grown meaningfully.

For firms looking to make the transition to digital but lacking supportive boards, it may be time to think about replacing a director or two. Research has shown that companies that replace three to four directors every three years outperform their peers. And even a couple digitally savvy board additions can go along way toward building support for new initiatives.

The flip side applies to board members: those that show no interest in digital are more likely to be pushed aside. Digital growth is appropriately a priority for a diverse swath of organizations, and boards need to get with the program.

What Made a Great Leader in 1776

The ordinarily decisive George Washington was paralyzed by indecision. It was the summer of 1776, and the Continental Army was being routed by the British in New York. Sick from dysentery and smallpox, 20 percent of Washington’s forces were in no condition to fight.

Militia units were deserting in droves. General Washington had exhausted himself riding up and down the lines on Brooklyn Heights, attempting to rally dispirited troops. Prudence dictated retreat – to preserve the hope of fighting another day. At the same time, though, Washington viewed any defeat as damage to his reputation and a stain on his honor.

There are any number of good reasons to read Joseph J. Ellis’s splendid little book, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence. Ellis is a wonderful storyteller. His prose is lucid and succinct. Revolutionary Summer is a riveting exposition of exploded myths and excruciating dilemmas. For one thing, Washington — while by no stretch of the imagination the “little paltry Colonel” the British constantly derided — was not the near deity we often read about in American history books. He only reluctantly accepted the advice of aides for what turned out to be a brilliant tactical retreat in August of that summer, and a turning point in the war.

Indeed, the Americans, writes Ellis, were frequently “improvising on the edge of catastrophe.” Which helps to explain why Ellis’s book is a such a terrific case study in leadership. Here are the lessons I take away from it for leaders today.

First, success often depends on a team with complementary skill sets, frequently involving different temperaments and work styles. As a leader you have to assemble the talent you need, and live with and mitigate the shortcomings of respective team members. Thomas Jefferson, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, was superb with a pen. He was a notoriously poor public speaker, however. John Adams was brilliant, courageous, and resolute. He also suffered extreme mood swings and could be dangerously hubristic. (Furious over desertion rates, Adams suggested to an aide that they execute in each regiment every tenth man as a lesson.) Then there was Thomas Paine, the perfect spokesman for their cause. “I could not reach the Strength and Brevity of his style,” remarked Adams, “nor his elegant Simplicity nor his piercing Ethos.” Yet Adams also contended that Paine was “better at tearing down than building up,” a reference to what would happen after British rule.

The takeaway? If you are clear about your objectives, and focused on precisely what you need to develop and execute the elements of your strategy, you can assemble an unbeatable organization. Hire for common purpose, yes. But don’t hire clones.

Second, leadership is tested most by a dilemma — a situation that requires a choice between two or more equally unfavorable options. It is leadership’s job to arrive at decisions, and to do so in a way that aids their implementation. Adams insisted on postponing deliberations on what the new nation would look like, fearing that early splits between advocates of a confederation of sovereign states and champions of a consolidated union would undermine the war effort. He also wanted to postpone discussion of the fundamental disagreement between the northern and southern states over slavery. Some 500,000 individuals, roughly 20 percent of the population at the time, were African American, and nearly all slaves. The institution of slavery was an appalling contradiction of everything the revolution stood for. But Adams was convinced that all other political goals would be lost if independence from Britain were not first achieved. (Adams also resisted his wife Abigail’s plea to advance rights for another disenfranchised group: the female population that could neither vote nor, if married, own property.)

Here, my takeaway is that essential to leading is being clear about priorities. Not all decisions will involve the profound moral dilemmas faced by Adams and his peers. However, every difficult decision has a downside and produces unintended consequences, some of which are simply impossible to foresee. Do your due diligence. Then plunge in and push ahead.

Finally, a gem nearly all of us ignore: good leaders need good sleep. There were many challenges that plagued George Washington. His soldiers were, writes Ellis, “a motley crew of marginal men and misfits, most wearing hunting shirts instead of uniforms, spitting tobacco every ten paces.” The array of considerations Washington had to make was daunting. To mention but one, there were roughly 15,000 cattle, sheep, and horses on Long Island. What to do? Leave them? Confiscate the livestock to prevent them from falling into British hands? If yes, how would confiscation impact the allegiance of the farmers? New York was already infested with loyalists. Washington was swamped by a thousand such details. One wonders, though, whether a chronic sleep deficit was as serious a challenge as any individual issue he faced.

According to Ellis, at one point Washington was so exhausted he was unable to file a crucial report to the Continental Congress. He told John Hancock that in 48 hours, “I had hardly been off my Horse and never closed my Eyes, so that I was quite unfit to write or dictate.” Was a lack of sleep at least in part responsible for Washington losing his customary discipline and control on the battlefield? At the battle of Kip’s Bay — between what is now 32nd and 38th streets in Manhattan — Washington “struck several officers [with his riding crop],” repeatedly threw his hat to the ground, and initially resisted his staff’s desperate efforts to get him to exit the field — as British infantry was just 50 yards away.

There’s nothing weak or wimpy about getting rest, even — and especially! — in crisis situations. Today we have the science to back this up. Sleep deprivation can produce myriad deleterious effects, including frustration, confusion, irrationality and indecisiveness. According to sleep researchers, sleep helps us with alertness, perception, memory, reaction time, and communication. Specifically, sleep deprivation diminishes regional cerebral metabolism in the prefrontal cortex, that part of the brain responsible for higher-order cognitive processes. The result: impaired judgment, and high-risk behaviors.

I myself recall managing the case of a kidnapped Iraqi journalist in Baghdad several years ago. Our team got the reporter out alive, with high marks in a review from the U.S. military hostage negotiators who had assisted throughout — except that I was criticized sharply for going two weeks on 3-4 hours sleep per night. That was a well-intentioned behavior that might well have put the entire operation in jeopardy, the de-brief emphasized.

The lesson should be obvious: Balance is key. Work like a maniac, if you will. But no matter the stakes, if you don’t rest your body and mind, something (or someone) will be jeopardized.

I’ll end with my most general (and perhaps obvious) takeaway from reading Ellis: leaders looking for insights on how to do their crucial work better will find them in the vivid accounts of past triumphs. We don’t read history because it repeats itself. We study history because it reveals and inspires.

And all the better if it sometimes amuses. When the commander of British forces, still hopeful for early surrender, told Benjamin Franklin that he would lament American defeat like the loss of a brother, Franklin replied, with a bow and a smile: “My Lord, we will do our outmost to save your Lordship that mortification.”