Leadership in Turbulent Times - Crying Need of The Hour

I had been meaning to read this book ever since I came across it and found it engrossing and a page-turner. Was able to finish it in a space of 3-4 days. The title is particularly captivating at first glance because you are reminded that there seems to be a huge void when you look for great leaders on the public sphere -no one comes close to the stature of four key men mentioned in this book. And they faced gigantic challenges and led and inspired the way out. So I definitely wanted to read and see what are those qualities that have gone missing over the period of time.

This book provides a great glimpse into the lives of arguably four of the Top 10 rankings presidents of the USA by public opinion. All of them had different upbringings, different challenges but all of them left an indelible mark on history. There are some common qualities among all four of them but then there are very contradicting qualities in all of them too. So it is very important to see and spot the pattern of what is it that helped shape them into the great leaders they turned out to be. 

The premise of this book is so captivating because it provides enough evidence to ponder over some classic questions like -

• Are leaders born or made?

• Where does ambition come from?

• How does adversity affect the growth of leadership?

• Do times shape the leader or the leader shape the times?
• Why some people are able to extract wisdom from experience? 

• While others in the face of adversity - they lose their bearing and their lives forever stunted?

Picked some of the sentences directly from the book as they were so well-written

Three of them on facing difficult times - withdrew themselves to some other place, activity where through reflection and adaptive capacity were able to transcend their ordeal armed with a greater resolve and purpose. (For Lincoln - it was law and study, Teddy Roosevelt - Badlands, FDR - Warm Spring Georgia where he recuperated and met others. LBJ is an exception).

Lincoln
Early Signs

• He likened his mind to -
  
  I am slow to learn and slow to forget that which I have learned. My mind is like a piece of steel, very hard to scratch any thing on it and almost impossible after you get it there to rub it out.
• Was extremely poor. Walked miles to borrow books to educate himself. 
• Affable by nature. Was easy for him to strike conversations and form relationships with people. Also indicates he had a high degree of EQ. He was the source of his friends’ entertainment and also the lone dissenting (contrarian) voice when such cases arose - wasn’t afraid to face their disapproval rather than abandon what was right.
• Crafted an intensive education for himself.

• Avid reader.

• Storytelling ability.

Adversity Struck

• Suffered a blow to his public reputation when his home state Illinois plunged into recession and all his pet projects were stalled.

• He valued his promises to the electorate very much.

How did he turn it around

• Turned around his bad phase by withdrawing from public life and focusing on law practice. And he started to read beyond the boundaries of law like - philosophy, astronomy, science, political economy, history, literature, poetry and drama.

• His pursuit of knowledge was directed towards understanding the role and purpose of leadership.

• Did deliberate practice of storytelling by soliloquizing

• Do we know what books he read?

Characteristics:

• Had an immense desire and ambition to inscribe his name on the book of communal memory. Wanted to emulate DeWitt Clinton. 

• Extremely good orator. Inspired conviction in others because of the conviction of the speaker in himself.

Teddy Roosevelt

Early Signs

• Roosevelt’s mind was "wax to receive and marble to retain. " Photogenic memory.

• Was born into a well-to-do family but was physically weak so father arranged for all sorts of tutors in any field he showed interest in like Taxidermy, German etc.

• Avid reader.

• As a biographer wrote - “The story of Theodore Roosevelt is the story of a small boy who read about great men and decided he wanted to be like them.”

• Widely read in all disciplines and well traveled at a young age.

• Lacked empathy, kindness. But very curious, zealous and focused.

• Storytelling ability.

• Took interest in politics from college when many of the peers stayed away.

Adversity Struck

• Lost his young wife and mother on the same day.

How did he turn it around

• Left for the Badlands and started to live among the cowboys adopting their lifestyle in order to become familiar with the hardships as he was born in a well-to-family

• Stayed there for two years - and made his body stronger (he was physically weak) and made himself mentally strong.

• Perseverance was the key!

Characteristics:

• Start with a bang - believed in starting a new venture with style

• Ask questions

• When attacked, counter-attack and stick to your point.

• Realized as a navy admiral - to keep space with the people he was supposed to command. It is the greatest possible mistake to seek popularity by showing weakness or mollycoddling with the men who then never respect a commander who does not enforce discipline.

• Used to endorse the African proverb “Speak softly and carry a big stick”

Franklin Roosevelt

Early Signs

• Lacked the physical strength of Lincoln and the torrential energy of Theodore. Was also born in a privileged class and an only child.

• Great temperament is what set him apart!

• Developed a desire to be the “nice child” so as to not trouble his sick father. This continued as he remained the “good student” in school earning him no friends.This tendency took shape in his adulthood as well where he learned to project optimism.

• Also was passionate towards his hobby of collecting stamps.

• Was interested in debating from the start.

• Had decided to follow the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt while in his 20s
  

Adversity Struck

• Was struck by polio unaware.

How did he turn it around

• He had the tendency to project happiness and optimism even if he was sad, lonely inside right from his childhood so as to not worry his parents.
• Kept looking for alternative treatments for polio which at the time was not fully understood. (~1921)
• Had a very supportive wife and a friend (Louis Howe) who had tied his future to FDR’s political career. Wife continued to represent him in political circles cultivating his prospective political allies while he recuperated and the friend strategized his comeback. Warm Springs, Georgia  - was key to his revival. 
• He came to know about a spa in a ramshackle resort which had mineral water gushing from the nearby hillside at around 86 degrees. It was rumored to have therapeutic value and in his search for “alternative” treatment he wanted to try it out.
• He could feel improvement so he took over the place, invested his own personal fortune and built it into a resort where other specially abled people could come and recuperate too.
• He underwent a spiritual transformation developing a powerful new empathy enabling him to connect emotionally with all manners of people who fate had dealt an unkind blow.

Characteristics:

• Projected bright and happy mood even though deep down he was troubled. Good quality needed for a leader.
• Experimental i.e always open to trying out new things - common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all try something. With this same approach - he treated his illness and the Great Depression.

Lyndon Johnson:

• He was the only one out of the four who reacted negatively from the adversity - it magnified negative aspects of his nature. Later on a heart-attack helped him reshape his life's priorities.
• FDR was his mentor but he even repudiated his mentor’s landmark achievement (the New Deal) to achieve some political gain.
• He wasn’t a good public speaker so tried to balance it by “meaningful” one-to-one interactions.
• Indulged in some fishy maneuvering to win the Senatorial race which he himself had been at the receiving end of in 1948
• He had adopted the mantra of “getting ahead of the world by getting close to people who were head of things” aka kowtowing, pleasing people. Very calculating by nature.
• No hobbies. Didn’t know how to unwind.

Characteristics:

• Used to work himself to the ground. Was a hard taskmaster.
• Single-minded determination, enthusiasm, flattery

The Box: Internet Alone did not bring Globalization

I do not remember where I read about this book but I do remember adding it to my To-Read list. But when I got to it was worth the recommendation! Wonderful book - which gave me lots of valuable insights and perspective on how the world has not solely been transformed by bits and bytes alone. The book's TL;DR can easily be - Globalization did not happen only cause of the Internet, It was the 

Container which laid the groundwork. If the transportation industry hadn't figured out how to ship products from one corner of the world to other efficiently with lowest costs - no matter how easy was it for two people to talk across the world, higher costs would have deterred any free flow of commerce and trade.

I also understood how seemingly slow changes change the course of society and ultimately transform cities and towns unheard before - changing the fortunes of many overnight.

Some might argue that this book is academic and dry at places but having read it thoroughly I would point that the author did an extremely good job in covering all aspects revolving around the container technology - the shippers, trucker, dockworkers, exporters and regulators who were at the center of it but also the macro effect.

What I wish would have been there was some maps of the shipping routes to help the reader easily visualize the challenges and travails of maritime trade. 

Overall it was a great read - feel like I learnt quite a few things!

The Internet is given a lot of credit for the globalization - how the world came closer and trade between countries far across became possible. But it is containerization that was a major precursor to the internet revolution which made the Internet impact possible.

Containers - “the box” made logistically possible how competition would be right there at the doorstep - forcing almost all industries to innovate and take measures to cut costs to stay in the game. 

Ideal X - First container ship to sail in 1956 from Newark to Houston 

Before containers were a thing - shipping was done in break-bulk ships as in all commodities were stocked in the cargo hold of the ship. (breakbulk - all discrete items had to be handled individually - cement bags next to sugar next to copper wires). There was no pattern in how the items were stored - often it would require that at a port all the items to be unloaded because the cargo meant for the that port was at the bottom under all other cargo. Also, loading & unloading was all done by dock workers and longshoremen which were all unionized. Since it was all manual labor they had very less incentive to be efficient which was in direct contrast to the shippers’ interests.

It is also worth mentioning that the working conditions at the docks were not at all safe. Dock workers had low salaries and they had to literally fight to get a job each day by assembling at the square - waiting for the ship to arrive whenever that maybe. Going to home to grab a quick bite or for other errands even though the ship was scheduled for arrival in the evening - usually meant losing their spot in the queue. All this unorganized system meant that the dockworkers had developed more 

loyalty towards each other than to the company. They formed unions which were interested in drawing up contracts with every minute detail like time to take breaks and how long they would be in.

Another thing that happened was that these unions were strictly against outsiders - with the dockworkers living near the docks - it became a family profession i.e the grandfather got his son his place in the docks when he retired and the son tried to make sure no outsiders came in so as to reserve a place for his son in the future. The dockworkers culture was very insular.

Even after unloading a complicated web of interchanges from the port to trucks, trains, planes and ferries awaited the exporters - which drove up the costs. Freight transportation was ultimately too unpredictable for manufacturer to take risk on delivering on time. Large inventory thus became a need to keep the production lines moving. With all these inefficiencies ships spent more time anchored at the docks than sailing which was what it should be primarily doing. The shipping industry was crying in need of an innovation to fix all these problems.

Malcolm McLean came up with this idea of containers and the first container ship - a refitted oil tanker sailed in 1956. It brought with it these benefits: 

• all items could be stored without the need to be handled individually,
  
• also it stopped cases of thefts - thus driving down insurance costs,
  
• The shipping line company over the years made the loading & unloading process more efficient using machinery and custom built cranes - cause of which the longshoremen gangs size constantly dropped from a once all time high of 22. Ultimately all that is needed now is a crane operator who sits many feet above the ground in a crane and picks up the container via the hooks on its corners and places it on a truck (or a flat railway car) and the truck (or the train) drives away to a distribution hub where the container is unloaded - thus reducing the time ship spent waiting for its cargo to unload.
  
• Lots of cities which were hesitant to invest or lacked foresight to see the change coming in maritime industry via containers - missed out.
  On the West coast - Los Angeles, Oakland - Alameda (home to Matson), Seattle and on the East coast - New York (after substantial investment), Savannah (late joiner) cashed in as traditional hubs like San Francisco, Portland and in Europe- London, Liverpool and Paris missed out.
  Globally, Rotterdam, Felixstowe and Antwerp in Europe and China with its relentless investments in its shipping ports caught up late but now is the leader with the most busiest and thriving ports. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_container_ports
  
• The shipping line companies were earlier organized more as cartels (they were called “conferences”) - they charged for every type of commodity in the cargo which didn’t make sense. And if an exporter ever used any shipping line outside the conference - the next time he tried to use any of the shipping lines of the conference he had to pay fine and pay more over. With the advent of containerships - what was inside a container became immaterial. TEU (20 foot Equivalent Units) became the unit on what was charged. Also, resistance of unions, the proximity of the port to the nearest railroad and trucking routes became super important on where the ships would make a stop. Little known ports benefitted.
  
• Some of the shipping lines tried to tap on the containerization- commissioning new ships to be built for different sizes of containers - a capital intensive project. This was before container sizes were standardized. Different sizes was a problem as it meant all container ships couldn’t stop at any ports as often a port wasn’t equipped with containers of various sizes. Many trucking and railroad companies couldn’t handle different container sizes - thus providing an opportunity for a mini-cartel. There was a difference in container sizes in use between Europe and USA causing logistical nightmares. Until after a long drawn process standardized the container-sizes bringing in some semblance of order.
  
• The time the first container ship sailed in 1956 is consequential as around the same time lots of ports on the Pacific side lost traffic as lumber moved on to road leaving the huge investments as white elephants. It revived the slowing maritime trade. 

If you look around today you can see the undeniable impact of containers all around us - Amazon and e-commerce websites ship multitude of items to their customers all in a box - inspired by the steel container. At a few places you can see people living out of containers or even hosting creative studios or workshops.

Another interesting observation I had was that Malcolm McLean - the pioneer of this technology was not able to cash in completely on the revolution his brainchild ushered. Read about his struggles to keep his shipping line companies (SeaLand and United States Lines) afloat. There were others who built on top of his vision and made the benefits of this technology more profound. Perhaps, this is what should happen - people build on top of each others ideas and visions to arrive at a magnificent future whose scope is way beyond the original idea. Major reason why competition is a good thing!

Interesting tidbits: 

• BBC did story called the Box Project where it covered the journey of the box. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/business/2008/the_box/default.stm

• Panama Canal - how locks work https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pHmaZw5j1is

• World’s Largest Containership makes its maiden call at a port 

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Moxpa7f1BqM