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the korn/ferry institute briefings on talent & Will China leadership Slow Down? pg.8 Opportunity in the Euro Zone pg.14 Giving the Brain a Seat at the Table pg.18 issue 4 Drug Discovery and the Balance Sheet pg.33 BP Case Study: Do the Right Thing pg.58 Planting the Q4. 2010 Seeds of Q4.2010 Wealth An Interview With Carlos Slim pg.26 $9.95 us $9.95 cnd €7.50eur £6.70 uk ¥915 jpy 10.60 chf 36.50 aed ¥70 cny contents 9 8 14 5 Letter from the CEO 18 Latest Thinking 8 Will China sloW doWn? Will China act as the world’s engine, or as its brake? 9 philanthropy after the fall With the world struggling, philanthropy is needed more than ever. Viewpoint 12 agile learning Research shows the best leaders are the best learners. BY george s. hallenBeck jr. and kim e. ruYle 26 12 10 Europe 14 amid grey Clouds, opportunity in the euro zone 50 Not all doom and gloom, a weak euro means growth for the Eurozone, hope for companies. BY adrian wooldridge Leadership 18 the biology of leadership: giving the brain a seat at the table The brain has a logic all its own when it comes to who follows and who leads. BY david BerreBY 42 Interview 26 planting the seeds of Wealth In Review Carlos Slim, the world’s wealthiest man, isn’t just building companies, he’s building countries. 64 “the Ceo’s boss” BY garY Burnison, eduardo taYlor 68 “leadership from the inside out” and joel kurtzman Cool Companies Parting Thoughts 33 drug disCovery and the balanCe 72 With more people, more Work sheet gets done A California start-up’s stem-cell revolution. More trained people will mean more problems solved. BY lawrence m. fisher BY joel kurtzman Talent 33 42 priCe Cutting at the bottom of the pyramid Success in emerging markets is a matter of price. BY victoria griffith 50 the upside doWn Company What would Jack Welch think? HCL’s Vineet Nayar is putting employees first. BY glenn rifkin Downtime 49 Wit and wisdom from the front lines. Governance 58 do the right thing: a Case study on bp The whole world’s watching. What should BP do? 58 Tell the truth. from the ceo the eighth wonder of the world By Gary Burnison It could be added as the Eighth Wonder of the nizes failure but realizes that failure is World: leadership. It is something that is better not defined in the moment, but rather by what the leader does after the fail- seen and felt than defined and said. John Quincy ure occurs. In its essence, leadership Adams, the sixth president of the United States, comes with a special type of inner se- said it best, “If your actions inspire others to renity, one that reconciles failure with dream more, learn more, do more and become success and recognizes that the two more, you are a leader.” are inextricably linked. Failures are fatal only when a leader fails to learn from them. I’ve been on a quest to discover some of the fun- Leadership is much less about the leader, much damental truths about leadership. Over the last year, I more about the followers and the mission. It’s about have had the privilege to speak with and interview having individuals look into your eyes and see who dozens of leaders around the world — people in high you really are; it’s about letting them see into your soul. places, people with tough jobs, people with global More than charisma, real leadership is about being roles, people with local roles — from the president of authentic, which is a trait that endures. Leadership is a sovereign nation to global Fortune 500 CEOs to the also about compassion and the genuine development richest man in the world. I’ve thought about what of the people you are leading. It is about helping peo- they’ve said and I’ve compared their insights with ple feel sufficient common purpose that they are able what I’ve learned in my own life. to achieve extraordinary things. Great leaders, at least the ones I’ve talked to, Though I’ve traveled the world interviewing lead- don’t agree on everything, but they seem to agree on ers, I’ve learned that leadership is in many ways as some things. simple as the lesson my father (and probably your First and foremost, leadership starts with the in- father, too) taught: actions speak louder than words. ner being of the leader, and is reflected and dissemi- Consider a leader off the beaten track — John nated through words, actions and passion. It’s built McKissick, the football coach at Summerville High on honesty, humility and integrity, and it ends with School in Summerville, S.C. He is America’s all-time taking personal accountability for failure and team winning football coach. As of the end of the 2009 foot- recognition for success. It’s built on long hours of ball season, Coach McKissick had amassed an incred- work, attention to details, a relentless and insatiably ible tally of 576 victories — far more than any other competitive spirit and good decision making. That coach at the high school, college or professional level. kind of leadership can’t be faked. What’s McKissick view of how he scored all In my experience, leaders who are selfish usually those victories? “Coaches never win games; players fail, at least in the long run. And yet, if leaders are self- never lose games,” is what he said. His point is simple, less, they may fail too. That’s because failure, like the poignant and humble. Winning is not about the “dawn’s early light” (to put it in poetic terms) is inevi- leader. It is about the team, and the leader’s role is to table. It cannot be dispensed with. Leadership recog- always make it so. Briefings on TalenT & l eadership Q4.20105 McKissick may have won more than 500 games, richest man — and delves down deeper to try and under- but he lost a lot of games too. He built his record not stand how he thinks. In this issue, we also look at how on communicating a silver lining to go with the Vineet Nayar, one of India’s most talented business losses, but on creating a vision compelling enough, leaders, is turning his company, HCL, upside down. and values strong enough, to push his teams ahead af- This issue, which is our most global yet, also ter they lost. As a leader, McKissick is not simply a looks at whether China will continue on its rapid messenger of the team’s strategy. He is the message. growth course, whether the euro will hold together Leaders are mirrors for the entire organization. despite the strains, and how companies can gain If he or she is pessimistic, the organization will suc- greater market share in the emerging world by focus- cumb to mediocrity. Many leaders told me this. If the ing on price. It also takes a look at the BP oil disaster leader reflects brightness and light, the organization in the Gulf of Mexico, to see how that crisis could — will also shine. Leadership is making certain that and should — have been managed. after every conversation with an employee, that em- This issue of Briefings also widens horizons by ployee feels better and more capable and more will- looking at the biology of leadership and examining ing to stretch than before the conversation began. how the brain itself works, and how it is wired. And, I’ve learned in my conversations with leaders it looks at the science behind a little start-up that is from around the world that real leadership is never making big advances in stem cell research. The arti- about power but the restraint of power. It is about cles in this issue are global, thoughtful and thought self-discipline and about rising above the immediate. provoking — traits every leader must have. The real leaders I’ve met are about standing for some- But leadership is not just about thinking lofty thing far bigger than themselves. thoughts. Leaders must be grounded too. They must This issue of Briefings combines leadership with separate what they do from who they are, all the the real-world arts. It examines the leadership style of while keeping their heroic aspirations and recog- Mexico’s Carlos Slim — traits that made him the world’s nizing that leadership, like life, is a journey. David Pohl/theispot 6 Q4.2010 Latest thinking easing and the stimulus may have worked too well. “The key risk is that Will China overheating and inflation will force the Chinese government to put on the brakes Slow Down? more quickly than it would like,” said Tom Miller, the Beijing-based managing editor Analysts disagree about the sustainability of of The China Economic Quarterly. If tight- the economic boom orchestrated by Beijing. ening measures are taken and the stimu- lus is withdrawn, said Stephen Joske, the director of the Economist Intelligence hina’s was the first major The combined effect was a sharp uptick Unit’s forecasting service for China, that economy to begin to recover from the in growth — well above the pace that nation’s “growth will be slowing signifi- global recession. When the global crisis most external observers had expected. So cantly from now on.” began to intensify in the fall of 2008, the why are many analysts now warning that Not only do many worry that the Chinese authorities reacted with a dou- the vaunted Chinese economic boom Chinese government’s policy whipsawing ble-barreled policy of drastic monetary may be about to hit the skids? could cause convulsions in the system, Ceasing and a massive stimulus package.

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