Monthly Archives: January 2009

Hobbies, Personal

Malcolm Gladwell

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One of the main benefits of being at the Gates Foundation is the large number of special guests and speakers we have every year.  Last Friday, we hosted a chat with the brilliant Malcolm Gladwell.   I had never read any of his books before but I had heard glowing reviews for Tipping Point and Blink.  The focus of his discussion was his new book – Outliers.  Despite the name, the real intent of the book is not to point out what is unique about an individual or situation, it is to present the unique set of circumstances that lead to an “outlier”.  He was brilliant!  Some of the things he discussed:

• Why rice growing traditions in Southeast Asia have led to higher math test scores
• Why most elite hockey players are born during the early parts of the year
• Why the birthdate of a majority of our software tycoons is within the same three year period

I purchased his book for a friend and got it signed, however I could not stop myself from reading it from page to page over the past weekend.  It is brilliant!

The inauguration of Barack Obama is tomorrow.  One of Malcolm’s most interesting speaking points was that America sees Obama as an outlier but in many ways he is not.  Symbollically he might be the fruition of Martin Luthor King’s dreams, but technically his background doesn’t match.  In the end, it doesn’t really matter.  Tomorrow we will have an inspiring new president with an inbox from hell.  I have tremendous faith in him.

Professional

Leadership and Feedback

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This has been a very interesting week.  Work is getting tougher and tougher as we approach a major deadline but I’m enjoying it tremendously.  However, there are a number of challenges in our project that need to be addressed.

Surprisingly, we had a forum where our executive leadership allowed us to discuss our problems.  I thought it was a great idea.  However, there were two unexpected outcomes:
– I discovered that there were people suffering from the same challenges who had not been vocal about it before.  This was very reassuring.
– The people who had been vocal about problems did not want to speak up.  This was incredibly disconcerting.

I asked my question to leadership and they addressed it as well as they could.  It seemed like they were recording my thoughts for future action.  This made me happy.  However, right after the meeting, I felt worried.  Many of my peers felt like the forum was not the right place to discuss certain problems and that specific questions would be “career limiting moves”.

I feel like I made the right decision in voicing my concerns but I appreciate the challenge that executives face when searching for feedback.  How do you create an environment where concerns can be heard while people do not feel threatened? .

Personal, Travel

What I’ve Enjoyed Most about South Korea…

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I was at a new year’s day party a few days ago, and someone asked me what I enjoyed most about  my two weeks in Korea visiting my  family. A standard question like  that usually has a boilerplate answer.  However, on this occasion, I realized  that no standard answer would  apply:

  • The people? Not since Tonga did  I meet a population that was  so friendly but so difficult to  communicate with. Outside of my parent’s multinational apartment complex, it was a challenge to  connect with anyone.  You could not get around with just English.
  • The food? I didn’t enjoy any of the  traditional Korean cuisine. I thought  Korean barbeque and soju were unique but I had a hard time  with anything else. This has never happened to me before!!
  • The city? I think Seoul is amazing.  It reminds me of Wellington in New Zealand  as it is surrounded by beautiful  mountains. The public transportation  is fantastic and there were tons of great galleries. However,  the narrow alleyways and the  amazing density of people above  and below the ground made me  claustrophobic.

What I really enjoyed most was being my family on vacation in another country.  We used to vacation together all the time when I was growing up; however, our last family vacation was twelve years ago.   Even though I could feel all of us returning to our old roles in the “Koorse family unit”, I realized how much I missed us sharing an adventure together.

New Year’s Day was incredible.  I was swarmed by thousands of people in front of the bell towers!  My claustrophobia hit me very hard but I needed to be huddled with the masses to stay warm on that ridiculously cold night.  The fireworks were going off inside the crowd but surprisingly no one seemed to care.  At one point, I joined a  group that was chanting and I followed along. .  In ten minutes, we were surrounded by police.  Unfortunately, I don’t think my crowd was yelling holiday wishes.  Fortunately, no one was hurt and I learned a valuable lesson.