What Kind of Misfit Are You? - Umair Haque by Umair Haque | 9:43 AM August 4, 2011 Here’s a confession that may surprise no one who regularly reads this blog: I’m a misfit. And I always have been. And having spent a few decades on this planet as a slightly octagonal peg facing an endless vista of square, machine-made holes, I’ve developed a hypothesis about achievement. It’s this: great accomplishment usually takes the impertinence not to fit into the suffocating status quo. Consider the following. It’s not that every misfit accomplishes something fundamentally unexpectedly awesome (for example, yours truly). So here’s my question: what kind of misfit are you? I’d bet there’s a misfit just itching to be released inside each and every one of us. Hence, I’d say: the biggest and most unforgivable crime industrial age institutions commit against our humanity is to deny us the freedom of our own singular humanity.
America's Best Leaders: Indra Nooyi, PepsiCo CEO She played lead guitar in an all-women rock band in her hometown of Madras, India. She was a cricket player in college. She sang karaoke at corporate gatherings. Today, Indra Nooyi presides over 185,000 employees in nearly 200 countries as the chief executive of PepsiCo. And she still performs on stage at company functions. Nooyi came to the United States in 1978 at age 23 to earn her M.B.A. at Yale, where she worked as a dorm receptionist—opting for the graveyard shift because it paid an extra 50 cents per hour. When Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994, it was as the company's chief strategist. By 2006, Nooyi was one of just two finalists to succeed CEO Steven Reinemund as leader of one of the world's best-known brands. A caring CEO. As CEO, she has continued to pursue her unusual, and tremendously ambitious, vision for reinventing PepsiCo. By 2010, Nooyi has pledged, half of the firm's U.S. revenue will come from healthful products such as low-cal Gatorade and high-fiber oatmeal.
Privilege: A User's Guide - Gianpiero Petriglieri - HBS Faculty by Gianpiero Petriglieri | 10:41 AM January 25, 2012 Have you ever been confronted with your privilege? I recently was, when a former INSEAD student told me that his MBA class would recognize my teaching with an award. It meant a lot, and I promised on the spot to attend the graduation ceremony and accept the honor in person. I was away from campus, so I made travel arrangements and decided to treat myself to an evening in Paris before the event. I felt a bit ashamed. Privilege, that is. I also felt annoyed. I have witnessed similar mixed feelings among many people I meet in my work with leaders in business and education. All those are privileges not only because they are unequally distributed, or because they may event translate in wealth and status. Being ashamed of our privilege, claiming our right to it, or denying it altogether are hardly the best ways of dealing with it. Here is how. Recognize your privilege. Accept its price. Forget where it came from. Use it well.
Wang Lijun sentenced to 15 years in prison CHENGDU, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese court on Monday sentenced Wang Lijun to 15 years in prison and deprived him of his political rights for one year after finding him guilty of bending the law for selfish ends, defection, abuse of power and bribe-taking. Wang, the former vice mayor and police chief of southwest China's Chongqing municipality, was charged with several crimes and received a combined punishment for all offenses, according to a verdict announced by the Chengdu City Intermediate People's Court in southwest China's Sichuan Province. Wang received seven years in prison for the charge of bending the law for selfish ends, two years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year for the charge of defection, two years in prison for the power abuse charge and nine years in prison for the charge of bribe-taking. He received a combined punishment of 15 years in prison and deprivation of his political rights for one year.
The Souls of Chinese Cities - By Christina Larson Traveling through modern Chinese cities at times feels a blur, the view from a bus or taxi window seemingly untethered from any past or even particularities of place. In one sense, everything everywhere looks the same; it's easy to feel a little numb. Another Sinopec gas station. Another KFC. Another new high-rise apartment block, curiously and often enough, in "Tuscan" or "Neoclassical" style. China's fast-growing megacities -- 43 cities of one-million-plus today, and a projected 221 by 2025 -- may at first blush look homogenous and interchangeable, but of course a metropolis is more than a collection of buildings, and foundations aren't only poured in concrete. Beijing is an extraordinary and dynamic city, and my current home, but it's perhaps overrated -- at least as a prism for understanding China. One way to visualize this decentralization is a remarkable map, first published in 1977 by the anthropologist William Skinner in an anthology of scholarly articles about Chinese cities.
Trade Policy Priority One: Averting a U.S.-China "Trade War" | Daniel J. Ikenson | Cato Institute: Free Trade Bulletin Introduction An emerging narrative in 2012 is that a proliferation of protectionist, treaty-violating, or otherwise illiberal Chinese policies is to blame for worsening U.S.-China relations. The media have portrayed the United States as a victim of underhanded Chinese practices, including currency manipulation, dumping, subsidization, intellectual property theft, forced technology transfer, discriminatory “indigenous innovation” policies, export restrictions, industrial espionage, and other ad hoc impediments to U.S. investment and exports. Indeed, it is beyond doubt that certain Chinese policies have been provocative, discriminatory, protectionist, and, in some cases, violative of the agreed rules of international trade. Those agitating for tough policy actions should put down their battle bugles and consider that trade wars are never won. Nature of the U.S. Still that relatively benign characterization does not mean there is no cause for concern. Ratcheting up Tensions Tit for Tat U.S.
A Golden Rice Opportunity by Bjørn Lomborg Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space SÃO PAULO – Finally, after 12 years of delay caused by opponents of genetically modified (GM) foods, so-called “golden rice” with vitamin A will be grown in the Philippines. Golden rice is the most prominent example in the global controversy over GM foods, which pits a technology with some risks but incredible potential against the resistance of feel-good campaigning. Yet, despite the cost in human lives, anti-GM campaigners – from Greenpeace to Naomi Klein – have derided efforts to use golden rice to avoid vitamin A deficiency. The New York Times Magazinereported in 2001 that one would need to “eat 15 pounds of cooked golden rice a day” to get enough vitamin A. Opponents maintain that there are better ways to deal with vitamin A deficiency. To be sure, handing out vitamin pills or adding vitamin A to staple products can make a difference. Most ironic is the self-fulfilling critique that many activists now use.
The Myth of Authoritarian Growth by Dani Rodrik Exit from comment view mode. Click to hide this space CAMBRIDGE – On a recent Saturday morning, several hundred pro-democracy activists congregated in a Moscow square to protest government restrictions on freedom of assembly. They held up signs reading “31,” in reference to Article 31 of the Russian constitution, which guarantees freedom of assembly. They were promptly surrounded by policemen, who tried to break up the demonstration. A leading critic of the Kremlin and several others were hastily dragged into a police car and driven away. Events like this are an almost daily occurrence in Russia, where Prime Minister Vladimir Putin rules the country with a strong hand, and persecution of the government’s opponents, human-rights violations, and judicial abuses have become routine. What leaders like Putin understand less well is that their politics also compromise their countries’ economic future and global economic standing. At first sight, China seems to be an exception.
You’ve been Jiked! Imagine waking up one morning with a nagging compulsion to understand ideas that up to now have been entirely alien to you — concepts like democracy, freedom of speech or separation of powers. Perhaps, the night previous, there were whispers at the next table about a man named “Liu Xiaobo” who harbored “dangerous” ideas of this sort. Liu who? But, pshaw! You reach over to the bedside table and grab your mobile, knowing full well (as an internet literate Chinese “netizen”) that the answers are at your fingertips thanks to the miracle of search engine technology. Let’s say, for the purposes of this story, that your first gateway to knowledge and discovery looks like this: Jike.com is a state-controlled search engine launched in 2010 by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, and its listed internet arm, People’s Daily Online. With a slight blush of guilt you enter your first search term: “separation of powers” (三权分立). That sounds reasonable enough. Wait.