July 2014 – The Art of Doing

Joachim Low, coach of the winning German men’s soccer team, knows a few things about leading a team for a high-stakes performance.

Joachim Low was a mediocre professional soccer player. As a coach he had only middling success. When he was promoted from assistant to head coach of the German National Team in 2006 he followed in the footsteps of the much-revered coach Jurgen Klinsmann.

Low was a tactical mastermind. As Klinsmann’s chief game strategist and as head coach himself, Low had ditched the static and defensive style of the German team and replaced it with a relentless fluid style of attacking football. The German team’s success raised the collective hopes of the nation, but they always lost the critical games. After a disappointing loss to Spain in the semi-finals in the 2010 World Cup, Low was reviled in the German press. It became a national sport to question Low’s ability to bring home the cup.

In a pre-tournament poll, Germans had so little faith in Low’s leadership that only 6% of the country expected the team to win the 2014 World Cup. But apparently Low knew a thing or two about beating the competition because in front of a billion viewers of the final game, Low proved 94% of his countrymen wrong.

So what can we learn about competing from this footballing philosopher? Continue reading “3 Lessons on How to Beat the Competition from World-Cup Winning Joachim Low”

In the late 18th century, a motley crew of lawyers, farmers, merchants, and disruptive freethinkers had an idea for a startup. Few of them figured the fledgling startup had much chance of success. They came up with many names–including Columbia, the United Colonies, British America, and United Statesian–until they finally settled on the United States of America.

But how exactly do you go about starting up a government, especially if it is unlike any other that has existed before? It wasn’t as if they could go online and read up on how to do it.

The Founding Fathers were an exceptionally innovative collection of men. Not only has the government they conceived of lasted for more than 200 years, but it’s a model of democracy around the world.

It’s fascinating to realize that the political strategies the founders argued passionately about are still being argued today in business schools, boardrooms, and in the garages and basements of those aspiring to become the next Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg. Continue reading “Five Startup Lessons from America’s First Cofounders”