Juan Manuel Fangio

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Juan Manuel Fangio
Juan Manuel Fangio, an Argentinean race car driver, dominated Formula One racing in the first decade of the sport, in the 1940’s and 50’s. In the 1950 Monaco Grand Prix, as he exited the tunnel on the second lap, Fangio braked (inexplicably) as opposed to the normal behavior of maintaining speed. As a result, he avoided a horrendous accident, which was beyond…
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Beyond War and the BB Demo

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Beyond War and the BB Demo
The use of vivid details is one way to create internal credibility–to weave sources of credibility into the idea itself.  Another way is to use statistics.  Since grade school, we’ve been taught to support our arguments with statistical evidence.  But statistics tend to be eye-glazing.  How can we use them while still managing to engage the audience? Geoff Ainscow and other leaders…
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Bob Chapman

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Bob Chapman
Bob Chapman, CEO of the manufacturing company Barry-Wehmiller, faced both of those terrible words daily in 2009 as the financial crisis was beginning to wreak havoc on small business owners. After orders dropped 40%, he had to cut labor costs by $10 million or face shutting down.  His board thought layoffs were the only option, but Bob Chapman innovated a better solution.…
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Chef José Andrés

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Chef José Andrés
Sometimes heroes don’t wear capes. In the case of José Andrés, they wear heavy-duty face masks while helping to feed stranded passengers and crew on the Grand Princess cruise ship docked in Oakland. Among the 3,500 people on board, 28 were infected with COVID-19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Andrés was on the ground with his World Central…
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Ingvar Kamprad

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Ingvar Kamprad
Ever wonder how IKEA came up with unique Swedish names for all of its furniture? It was from its founder, Ingvar Kamprad, who is dyslexic. Kamprad’s original furniture business began as a mail-order sales business. Most of his products were identifiable by a set of numbers, but Kamprad had trouble remembering the codes for each product, which turned out to be the…
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Jack Welch

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Jack Welch
“Insecure managers create complexity. Real leaders don’t clutter,” Welch wrote in his autobiography. In Welch’s bestselling book, Jack: Straight from the Gut, he wrote that clutter and jargon had no place in an executive meeting. In one story, we get a glimpse of Welch’s no-nonsense style. “Let’s pretend we’re in high school. Take me through the basics,” Welch asked one executive…
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Satya Nadella

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Satya Nadella
When Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella was 25 years old and interviewing for a job, he failed to show his interviewer the trait he now says has been crucial to his success: empathy. “Empathy is only developed through your life’s experience. It’s not something that’s really endowed on you,” Nadella said. “[With] every passing mistake you make, you develop more of a sense…
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Kazuo Inamori

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Kazuo Inamori
In January 2010, Japan Airlines (JAL) filed for bankruptcy protection under the Corporate Rehabilitation Law with the largest debt of any company since the end of WWII: 2.3 trillion yen ($25 billion). At the urging of the Japanese government, Kazuo Inamori accepted the position of chairman in order to spearhead JAL’s restructuring. There were three reasons Inamori undertook this crucial task despite…
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Shigeru Miyamoto

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Shigeru Miyamoto
Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto, a titan of the video game industry. He joined Nintendo just when it was shifting focus from creating playing cards to video games in 1977 and helped create some of the most critically acclaimed games of all time. He has been a co-creator of the Donkey Kong, Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Starfox franchises. He…
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Luke of America’s Got Talent

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Luke of America’s Got Talent
Six years of classical violin lessons instilled in Luke solid technical skills, but no love of the violin. Then someone handed him a ukulele, and he was hooked. He quickly made a name for himself locally, and when Americas Got Talent came to town, he auditioned successfully for the show. The seventeen-year-old performed in front of a hometown, to an audience of…
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