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Working for a development finance institution at the forefront of poverty
mediation in Cameroon,
I had the amazing opportunity to move to Cote d'Ivoire as an analyst.
I was excited, not just because Côte d'Ivoire was the largest economy in French
speaking west Africa, but because Côte d'Ivoire was preparing for elections which
was expected to mark the beginning of a new era, and I wanted to be part of this.
Barely two weeks after I officially moved to Côte d'Ivoire in [INAUDIBLE],
I was asked to leave.
Why?
The political situation had deteriorated so rapidly.
The elections did not have the desired results.
I moved to Senegal to work for the same company and I started liking the place.
Fast forward six months.
>> [COUGH] >> I had settled in and
I started forming new rituals.
One of them was sitting at a cafe on Sunday afternoon,
sipping a hot cup of green tea, pondering over the week ahead of me,
often distracted by the waves as they hit the shore.
But this particular Sunday was different.
I had a very difficult decision to make.
A political resolution to the civil war in Côte d'Ivoire had been reached and
I was asked to go back, but the security situation had not improved significantly.
Burned buildings, displaced family, a heightened sence of uncertainty.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Cote d'Ivoire once known as the Paris of Africa was a shadow of its former self.
I had a difficult decision to make that day.
And the decision was between staying in Senegal or going back to Côte d’Ivoire.
Of course, I was going to stay in Senegal.
[LAUGH].
I informed my boss that I was going to stay in Senegal, but
she told me to think about it again.
Between war torn Côte d’Ivoire and peaceful Senegal,
what else was there to think about?
[LAUGH].
But then, given I had more time in my hands to think about it,
this forced me to look at the situation differently.
I had spent all my time focusing on the advantages of staying in Senegal and
the disadvantages of going back to Côte d’Ivoire.
I had not even bothered to look at the advantages of staying in Côte d'Ivoire and
the disadvantages of staying in Senegal.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Often times in life we miss the beauty in the unattractive because we,
we spend so much time focusing on that attractive option.
I had to take a step back and
realize the decision was not just between a war torn country and a peaceful country.
The decision was between saving myself versus
missing an opportunity to help other people.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
There is an important variable in decision making that we often times miss because we
do not look underneath the surface.
And this important variable is staying true to who we are, authenticity.
The degree to which one is aligned with one's own person, personality,
character, despite all the external pressures defines authenticity.
Authenticity does not just apply to my decision to go back to Côte d’Ivoire,
it also applies in business and leadership as well.
At the GSB, we are taught cost benefit analysis.
Quantify all the costs, quantify all the revenues, and decide whether or
not to proceed with the project.
But sometimes, we must realize that a project's costs may exceed the revenues,
but then be so aligned with who we are as a person and, therefore, worth pursuing.
On the other hand, a project will be profitable, but
not worth pursuing because it doesn't align with who we are as a person.
Given for example, when Disney decided to acquire Pixar,
some people said this was not worth it.
Why should Disney acquire an animation company at such a huge financial cost?
They could develop animation internally.
But then Disney realized that entertainment,
entertaining people was its core value, and animation was an important variable,
and therefore it was worth pursuing even though it was a huge financial cost.
On the other hand we know the AOL Time Warner measure.
On paper the numbers look great.
It was even once hailed as the marriage of the old and new media.
But culture mismanaged an important variable was heating below the surface.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Today authentic leadership is gaining momentum.
They Harvard Business Review defines authentic leadership
as the courageous pursuit of one's self awareness.
You will be surprised to find out when
some of the five members of the Standford Graduate Business School
advisory council were asked one important leadership trait leaders should develop.
Your answer was almost unanimous, self awareness.
Knowing who you truly are, there are so
many advantages of knowing who we truly are.
Carl Jung, the father of analytical psychology summarizes this advantages
well, when he says that the true privilege of a lifetime is knowing who you are.
How many times have you made a decision and
then when you dug underneath the surface, you were surprised to find out that
the option you thought was the best was not the best option.
The unattractive alternative which you had dismissed at the beginning
ended up being the best solution for the problem you were looking at.
I certainly have.
[LAUGH].
When deciding to go back to Cote d'Ivoire I spent all my time focusing
on what I thought was attractive.
Staying in a beautiful country.
Observing my rituals on Sunday afternoons.
By then I didn't realize that I had to look underneath the surface
to realize what I was really choosing between.
Returning to Côte d'Ivoire was one of the best decisions of my life.
I had the amazing opportunity to work on exciting initiatives,
I would otherwise not have worked on if I had stayed in Senegal.
I even got the opportunity to chat with the First Lady of Côte d'Ivoire.
Every day in life we make 100s if not 1000s of decisions.
Whether you turn left or right.
Whether you press the snooze button in the morning.
[LAUGH].
>> Some of them are pretty easy.
[LAUGH].
But then once in awhile life chose very difficult decisions of us,
which can change the course of our lives, our careers, or even our businesses.
As it was the case for me a few years ago.
I want to encourage all of us to look at all the options we have before us equally.
Even those we think are unattractive, and even impossible.
We will find the beauty in the unattractive, we'd otherwise have missed.
The next time you do a cost benefits analysis of a situation,
remember it is only part of the picture.
Do not underestimate the power that total evaluation of all the alternatives,
would have in your success.
Thank you.
>> [APPLAUSE]
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