A P U B L I C AT I O N O F T HE L E A D E R S HI P I NST I T U T E AT H AR VAR D CO L L E G E
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FA L L 2 0 1 2
Inside Intel's Success How awareness of himself and the world propelled Intel CEO Paul Otellini to the top. p23
PLUS:
Project HEAL: How two girls redefined the recovery from an insidious illness among teens. p14 350.org: The leader in the fight against global warming, Bill McKibben forges new paths to make an impact. p32 Looking Back: Three generations of Harvard alumni share their best advice. p36
TABLE OF CONTENTS
BUILD
PHOTO COURTESY DOREEN XU
Contents
Photo from Legally Blonde: The Musical (page 16) AROUND CAMPUS
Fall 2012
6 7
Editor's Note the making of the magazine and the rationale behind the theme. - Jia Jia Zhang
Reciprocal Building Design Editor Dean Itani he views leadership as an
8 12 14
- Dean Itani
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Growth and Leadership Gap years foster leadership, wisdom, and inspiration. - Julia Eger
The Future of Innovation Creativity and learning proliferate across the river at the new Harvard Innova tion Lab. - Nathan Bruns
Impacting Through Activism hardship of recovery from an eating disorder to help inspire others. - Kristina Funahashi
16 18
Balancing Act Alex Willis '14 bridges the gap between science and theater. - Brianne Holland-Stergar
Forming Young Leaders initiatives.
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- Frank Maldonado
Making a Splash Using networking, innova
tion, and is water This article notto help available online.
- Linda Xia
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PHOTO COURTESY 350.ORG
TABLE OF CONTENTS
FEATURES
22 23 27 29 32 34
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Photo from 350 Organization (page 32)
Activism in Action Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Director of the hit documentary MissRepresentation, shares her views on women and the media. - Kavya Shankar
Leadership in Technology A look into how Intel's CEO, Paul Otellini, navigated the path from college student to one of business's major players. - Andrew Liu
Taking Risks LearnVest founder and CEO, Alexa von Tobel, shares how her leap of faith turned into a successful company. - Jenna Louie
Building a Dynasty A behind the scenes look at how Tommy Amaker, coach of the Harvard Men's Basketball team, is helping Harvard build a new legacy. - Jia Jia Zhang
Instigating Change Bill McKibben, passionate environmentalist and author of "The End of Nature," shares ways students can make a difference. - Celestine Warren
Fullbridge Program Peter Olson, former CEO of Random House, discusses leadership in the real world. - Peter Chen
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SKILLS
36 38 40 44 46
Building a Personal Legacy Three Harvard alumni from three differcollege and careers. - Linxi Wu
Building Social Capital Harvard Professor Robert Putnam discusses the critical importance of social capital within an organization. - Vicky Venegas
Leadership in Science Harvard Medical School Professor Gary requires universal leadership skills. - Caitlin Pendleton
Pitfalls of Poor Publicity How one student group's moment of crisis resulted in its transition to a more effective networking strategy. - Craig Herron
Advice from a Leader Kathy Taylor, a former mayor of Tulsa, OK, gives advice to aspiring leaders. - Franklin Lee
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EDITOR'S NOTE
BUILD
Building the Future Lecturing to a group of faculty and students at Harvard Business School in early 2012, Dr. Regina Dugan, then Director of DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, posed a question to her audience. She asked: why try to predict the future when you can build it instead? Indeed, active building seems much more enticing than passive prediction. But more importantly, prediction is also often unproductive. In the fall of 1971, a marketing study commissioned by AT&T, the largest and most powerful telecommunications monopoly of the 20th century, informed its research and development team at Bell Labs that “there was no market for mobile phones at any price.” Obviously, Bell Labs engineers did not listen. This edition of the Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine is all about equipped with a deep awareness of himself and the world, became Intel’s
Masthead A Publication of the Leadership Institute at Harvard College - Issue 5 - Fall 2012
Editorial Board
Jia Jia Zhang Editor-in-Chief
Vicky Venegas Managing Producer and Features Section Editor
Otellini encourages entrepreneurs and businesses to avoid trying to predict and to simply build instead: “Don’t get blinded by your idea, current technology, or paradigm. Intel is successful by reinventing itself every year.” Building something worthwhile is not a guarantee, and many who aspire to
Dean Itani Design Editor
world is to become a better place, we need to build not because we are certain we will succeed, but because we can’t stand to live another day without trying. org, a global movement to solve the climate crisis. McKibben’s grassroots movement is built on people power, and while his work is neither glamorous nor lucrative, it is incredibly important. McKibben and his students aren’t building
Rachel Zsido Business Manager
of a big deal.” Their success may not be certain, but they feel compelled to try nonetheless. kind of time, commitment, and patience I never thought I would be capable of giving an extracurricular organization in college. But like many people who work extremely hard to accomplish something, I became passionate about this publication and the prospect of expanding its appeal to audiences at Harvard and beyond. I saw the opportunity to build something useful, and despite the uncertainty of my success and the other demands in my life, I just couldn’t stop myself. The process has been rewarding and fun, thanks in large part to all the individuals who helped make this magazine possible, including but not limited all, I must thank the people who did most of the work—my dedicated editorial board, whom I am extremely proud of. It was an incredible pleasure working with my team, and I really can’t thank them enough for their time, effort, and friendship. We hope you, our audience, enjoy reading this publication as much as we have enjoyed building it.
Jia Jia Zhang Editor-in-Chief *This magazine was paid for in part by the Flora Family Foundation and the Harvard Institute of Politics (IOP).
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Julia Eger Around Campus Section Editor
Caitlin Pendleton Skills Section Editor STAFF Nathaniel Bruns Peter Chen Kristina Funahashi Kristina Garrido Craig Herron Brianne Holland-Stergar Franklin Lee Andrew Liu Jenna Louie Shunella Lumas Frankie Maldonado Kavya Shankar Celestine Warren Linxi Wu Linda Xia
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CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS Isabel Evans Deborah Ghim Danielle Lussi Katelyn Smith Georgina Winthrop BUSINESS Kenny Lee Ian Shields ADVISERS David Ager Adam Berlin Jon Doochin Loren Gary Anand Venkatesan
BUILD
THEME DEVELOPMENT
Reciprocal Building Student Perspective by Dean Itani You can absorb this magazine’s theme, ‘Build,’ in many different ways. The deeper you dig through these pages, the more you On the most basic level, we can build tangible things. We can imagine a CEO building a company from the ground up. An engineer building a skyscraper. A coach building her team’s skills. A little deeper, we can build intangible things. We can imagine a student building a positive classroom environment. A citizen building his neighborhood through community service. A writer building support and awareness for a cause through her words. Both are important aspects of building. After all, on the surface, a leader is one who strengthens the communities he is a part of. But still, a crucial aspect of building is not represented.
Building is always a reciprocal act. By building the communities around you, you are building yourself. It’s not just the skills you learn while building: you also strengthen your identity.
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If a stranger approached you and asked you who you were, what would you say? Your name, and then what? I would say I’m a Harvard student, a member of the Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine, a Texan, a brother, a son, and a potential economics major. But did I really describe who I was? All I did was name several communities I am a part of, ranging from Texas to my family to my classes. My identity is completely dependent on the communities I If Harvard were a lesser university, my identity would weaken. If Texas strengthens, then my identity strengthens. Thus, any community-building act is a reciprocal act. It is in this light that we challenge all of you to view this magazine. Every article showcases people who sought out opportunities to lead, improve their communities, and better themselves. They didn’t see the chance at reciprocal building. Leadership an investment. And the best leaders are always seeking out opportunities to better themselves.
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GROWTH IN LEADERSHIP
The Road Less Traveled
PHOTOS COURTESY GEORGINA WINTHROP
Gap years aren't common. But students who take them return with new interests and insights. Julia Eger tells the story of two Harvard students' gap year journeys.
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I
n the 2011-2012 school year, an estimated 3.2 million students will graduate from high school. Most high school seniors spend their last few months itching for their childhood’s glorious promise: college. Visions of dorm life and frat parties await as they scribble in bubbles of AP exams; escaping the close eye of parents seems like a dream. Yes, many load up their cars and drive off to their new campuses as soon as their high school years come to a close – but increasingly, some
students are choosing to take the road less traveled. For these brave few who choose to hold off on college, it seems that life itself becomes their classroom and life experiences become their teachers. Instead of heading straight to a university, William Eger ’12 and Isabel Evans ’14 took the initiative to step back from formal schooling to take what is commonly known as a “gap year.” Their decision helped them build a new perspective on the world outside of the four walls
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of a classroom, and shape their college experience before they even stepped foot on Harvard’s campus.
Finding Your Passion High schoolers rarely like to veer from the pack. But for William Eger ’12, who spent his year off working in Boston at a program called City Year, choosing to take an “abnormal” gap year was instinctual. “I wanted to take a gap year since about fifth grade,” he
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GROWTH IN LEADERSHIP
explained, “so when the time came, I just explained to my parents that I was going to do it.” Although his parents resisted the idea, fearing that putting off college for one year might deter their son from ever enrolling as a Harvard student, William wanted a chance to work in the real world before having to bury his head in books again. And since he knew public service was what he loved to do, that’s where he looked first for ideas. “AmeriCorps has a variety of programs that you can enroll in straight out of high school, and one of them is City Year,” he said. “So that’s what I chose.” During his year in Boston doing City Year, he lived on a stipend of $200 a week with two older roommates in Dorchester. “My day-to-day work was focused mostly on a kind of mini non-profit within City Year that helps high schoolers address social justice issues through service learning,” he said. Though only a nineteen-year-old himself at the time, he served as a leader for these underprivileged Boston high schoolers to teach them how to lead themselves and to give back to their community. “I grew up a lot,” he reflected. While working between 45 and 60 hours a week, his gap year taught him much more than what it’s like to be in an office. “I learned how to live on my own with very little money. I met and learned about people who come from entirely different backgrounds, and I gained a new perspective on a different swath of America,” he said. Putting himself in this foreign and at times uncomfortable setting forced him to grow his leadership skills, especially how to cope in new environments and how to inspire younger students to take charge of their own lives. Upon arriving at Harvard, his perspective on life was very different from that of a typical freshman. Having seen the less privileged areas of Boston only a couple of miles away from his freshman home in Stoughton Hall, he knew (and wouldn’t forget) that there was a huge world outside of the Harvard bubble. “One of the first things I did at Harvard
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was to join the Mission Hill After School Program,” he explained. “I had seen first-hand what it was like to work directly in the public schools, and I didn’t want to lose sight of that.” His public service foundation from his gap year lay the groundwork for him to become a coordinator of the program and then personnel director his junior year. “From the experiences I had in City Year, I knew that this was what I wanted to do. Coordinating and directing took up a huge amount of time, but I could take these roles on with confidence because I knew they would be something really rewarding for me and for the program.” His time off from being a student helped shape his perspective on how to structure his time and involvement at Harvard, which was invaluable to his college career.
Exploring Opportunities For Isabel Evans ’14, it was her curiosity about the world that convinced her to take a year off. “Almost all of my friends were going straight to college,” she explained. “But I realized there was a lot about the world that I need to learn before I enrolled as a freshman.” Whereas so many high school students go straight to college without pausing for a
"
Almost all of my friends were going straight to college. But I realized there was a lot about the world that I needed to learn before I enrolled as a freshman.
- Isabel Evans
Across: Isabel Evans ’14 and friends explore England while studying at Oxford. Right: Despite ample distance from our Cambridge, it's hard to avoid the Harvard names abroad: while exploring Oxford, England, Evans couldn't help but stop at the historic Radcliffe Camera building. HarvardLeadershipMag.org
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P H O T O S C O U R T E S Y H O L LY E G E R
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Left: William Eger ’12 and his City Year team smile on their first day together. Right: Marching through Boston Common after their program orientation, City Year students look ready to start their community service work.
The Road
Less
Traveled In delaying their enrollment, William Eger ’12 and Isabel Evans ’14 expanded their education.
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breath, Isabel recognized that would not have been productive for her. “I was exhausted after high school and knew that I wouldn’t appreciate college as much unless I took time off.” In her quest to learn more about the world, she decided to build up her experience in a few adventures: first in taking classes at Oxford, then traveling in India, interning for the Vital Voices Global Partnership in Washington, DC, and finally working as an employee of Strand Bookstore in New York City. After taking the initiative to plan this myriad of escapades, they proved to be exactly what she needed. “I left my gap year with a good work ethic and an understanding of how the working world works,” she explained. “Figuring out my gap year and making my own plans taught me how to take initiative and how to be a leader.” A great year is one thing, but how did these experiences shape her college experience? “Working for Vital Voices was probably the most rewarding for me. I worked fulltime to plan a global conference to end violence against women,” she said. “It inspired a huge passion for women’s issues that I hadn’t known before. One of the first classes I knew I wanted to take was Paul Farmer’s global health class – which I never would have taken before my gap year – so I could learn more about the health issues facing women in impoverished countries.” This past spring, Isabel planned for panelists from the Women’s World conference to come to Harvard to talk about female empowerment.
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Lasting Rewards While some fear that taking time off will cause high school seniors to lose academic “momentum,” Isabel found the opposite to be true. “My time away made me appreciate Harvard and learn more when I got here,” she explained. “I was so ready for real classes and formal education again.” Some students worry about taking a gap year because of the social aspect. “Sometimes it was hard to see pictures of my high school friends on Facebook, but I was having such a great time on my own that it hardly mattered,” she remarked. “And now most of my friends are terrified about starting their senior year of college, and I have an extra year!” While these two students decided on a gap year for different reasons, both enthusiastically described their time off as crucial for self-discovery and learning. Time away from school made their college years more effective. “I tell high schoolers, 'just do it,’” Isabel said. “There is nothing to lose. Yeah, we are so lucky to get the chance to go to college. But why are so many afraid to veer from the path?” The time between high school and college is a key one for personal growth, which makes a year off a special opportunity. “It was a really incredible experience for me as an individual. I learned how to take the reins and make choices for myself,” Isabel asserted. “Which is something high school never really made me do.”
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THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION
NATHAN BRUNS PHOTOS
Bottom left: The space’s sparse décor leaves a lot of room for creativity and enterprise. Bottom right: Professor Gordon Bloom’s class on innovation relies on student collaboration to foster and test ideas. Right: A view of the i-Lab from Western Avenue.
The Harvard Innovation Lab gives students a space to converse and collaborate.
Welcome to the i-Lab by Nathan Bruns
A
t first, the lecture space at the i-Lab seems barren and stark. The walls to the left, right, and back of the room
are white and unadorned, while the front of the room is dominated by sliding, ScienceCenter-lecture-hall blackboards. The space doesn’t fit the rumors about the i-Lab—it isn’t populated by whiteboards and it does not seem to perpetuate action and interaction. The tables and chairs all face forward, and, though students here for Professor Bloom’s Social Entrepreneurship class appear comfortable swiveling around to chat or finishing up lunch, there is some rigidity to the room.
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However, even this relatively traditional space cannot escape the interactive culture of the i-Lab. When class begins around ten past two in the afternoon, Professor Bloom—or, as his students know him, Gordon—ambles up to the front of the room and asks for requests. He is not interested, at this moment, in pitches or ideas to better mankind. He’s looking for songs. Though a chunk of the class calls out for Rascal Flatts and the soundtrack from Disney and Pixar’s Cars, repeated bellows for “Bruce” win out, and class begins to Bruce Springsteen’s “Born to Run”. Conversation and study in this edition of the class revolve around pitching a business idea and creating an executive summary. The professor, though, calls today a workshop, reflecting the location of the meeting.
The room, though barren when uninhabited, is designed to promote interaction and feedback. Columns amongst the tables-on-wheels position large flat-screens to relay the information projected at the front of the room to those at the back. Natural light falls in the row of windows at the left, and microphones dangle from the ceiling to allow the audience to give feedback without having to raise their voices. As Rashim Mawji ’15 notes, “The i-Lab’s classes are a lot more technologically advanced than most other places on campus”. The design of even this space—the most traditional classroom area of any part of the iLab—indicates both its intention and potential. The Harvard Innovation Lab, aside from being a space in which student-entrepreneurs can gather and interact, serves a unique function on the University’s campus.
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THE FUTURE OF INNOVATION
The space is purpose-built and increasingly utilized to facilitate interaction between students and development of communication and revision skills. While a professor traditionally stands before his or her students, Professor Bloom’s class does not operate in this manner. Seeking to blend theory and application, he stresses to his students that “there is no perfect way to do this, there is no perfect way to do this.” Social Entrepreneurship reflects the difference between the i-Lab and the rest of spaces on the Harvard campus: it allows experimentation and feedback. In this relaxed space, students can make mistakes. In allowing for mistakes, the i-Lab places the onus on students to design and create. In such a setting—with support but without handholding—students must take initiative and lead each other, contacting representatives of NGOs like Kiva looking for advice and potential partnerships. To enter the i-Lab, one must walk across the river, through the business school, and under a large red sign on the side of a large gray building. The sign, square and simple, welcomes visitors to the space with the ubiquitous greeting and i-Lab logo “Hi.” Passing through the doors, a visitor enters a minimal and contemporary space with a small café, a reception desk, and a number of glass walls. Through those to the right are large breakout rooms, and directly ahead is the entrance to the i-Lab proper. I hesitate to call it a room, as it is most certainly more multifaceted a space than any given single- or multi-purpose area at the College. Behind that nondescript glass door lays a space in flux. Though a central area including a table with barstools, a kitchen, and an Xbox
is understandably static, nearly all of the rest of the furniture in the i-Lab is on wheels. Tables, chairs, and whiteboards can be and are positioned to create conference areas and workstations marked off with write-on walls.
24 breakout and
conference rooms
30,000 sq
ft of “highly configurable space” Holds 80 seats with tables, 200 without tables
10 different sodas available from 2 refridgerators
Approximately 35 whiteboards The support columns scattered about the room are scrawled with motivational quotes, drawings, deadlines, and useful information. Around the edge of the room are breakout rooms for two to more than ten people. As Sophie Fry ’13 explains, such geography dictates the style of classes held in the
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space: “What is great about the i-Lab is that it really enables breakout sessions. When you are in any other classroom, you a pretty contained and restricted in terms of the breakout from the larger lecture. At the i-Lab, we can have both a lecture and then all break out into our own social enterprise groups and work on projects.” Its comfortable and flexible design aside, the i-Lab is notable for the interactions it facilitates and the skills it encourages. In the Social Entrepreneurship class, students give each other feedback on pitches for ventures to empower victims of sexual abuse, encourage literacy, and encourage corporate donations to charity. Professor Bloom provides forms on which and encourages discussion through which peers can evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of pitches and ideas. “Let’s do reverse feedback: how was it for you guys giving feedback?” he asks of a gathering of three pitch groups practicing for the proposals they will make in a week’s time. The students agree it takes a bit of time to develop the skill completely, but they seem to agree that looking for assets and flaws of another proposal assists them in finding the strong and weak points of their own work. When combined with the i-Lab’s supportive environment and allowance of mistakes, the feedback and communication skills encouraged by those who inhabit the space—professors, innovators, and entrepreneurs—foster leadership. Students are encouraged to think on the balls of their feet and are asked to take the initiative. They are asked to lead, and those who become involved and seek to improve society do.
NATHAN BRUNS PHOTOS
The i-Lab is a space made for students – from the inspirational quotes they write on the whiteboard walls, to breaks in the game room, to the content of Professor Bloom’s lecture.
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IMPACTING THROUGH ACTIVISM
PHOTOS COURTESY KRISTINA SAFFRAN
The story of two girls leading by example
Liana Rosenman Hofstra '13
Kristina Saffran '14
By Kristina Funahashi
T
hose who sit beside Kristina Saffran '14 in lecture or run into her in the dining hall would never suspect that she is the founder of a nationwide foundation
raising awareness and money for those suffering from eating disorders. Project HEAL, an organization founded by Kristina, works to help patients in need. Yet as a recovered patient herself, Saffran’s dedication to HEAL has made it a wildly successful program with seventeen chapters at high schools and colleges across the country. Meeting with Saffran to talk about the foundation, her pride and passion for HEAL shines through every word.
1 in 200
American women suffer from anorexia.
Can you tell me about the goals of Project HEAL in your own words? Kristina Saffran: HEAL has a twofold goal. The first is to raise money for eating disorder treatment, since insurance companies often do not cover residential treatment that averages around $30,000 a year. With fundraising, individual, and corporate donations, HEAL creates scholarships for patients in need. The second goal of HEAL is to promote positive body image. In high school, I saw how even my “normal, healthy” friends had problems with body image, and I wanted to negate such feelings in teenagers. Starting an organization at such a young age can’t be easy. How did you begin the process? KS: HEAL began as a will to just “do something.” My cofounder Liana and I had met a lot of people in outpatient therapy who had wanted to get treatment, but couldn't afford it. We had been lucky enough that our insurance had covered a lot of treatment and that our parents could afford to pay. We were sophomores in high school in 2008 when we first planned a fundraiser, and it ended up being
95%
of those diagnosed with an eating disorder are between the ages of 12 and 25.
SOU R CE: N ati onal Associ ati on of Anorexi a N ervosa and A s s o c i a te d D i s o rde rs
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IMPACTING THROUGH ACTIVISM
more successful than we ever could have dreamed. We were lucky that there was an overwhelming amount of support from those we reached out to for our cause. We held our first benefit brunch, which was wildly successful and raised $14,000, and we were spurred to keep on going. Where does funding for the scholarships come from, and what is your main role in Project HEAL today? KS: Most of our funding actually comes from large fundraisers that my cofounder, volunteers, and I plan. We have had four large fundraisers to date, each bringing in about $25,000. Other than that, we've raised a lot from large individual and family donations, grants, merchandise sales, and a bunch of smaller fundraisers. Today, I am actively running the foundation and overseeing the opening of new chapters across the country. I run the fundraising component and grant writing. I also communicate with treatment centers, and reach out to the media for publicity to raise support. How has HEAL grown as it has expanded over the years? KS: One of the main changes is the way we accept the scholarship recipients. Up until recently, Liana and I have chosen the scholarship recipients ourselves, but this past summer we implemented a clinical advisory board for legitimacy. The application for scholarships is now over 25 pages and requires formal documentation, so the patient shows dedication in simply applying. We have more volunteers involved now, too, such as the chapter coordinator that helps to organize the beginning of new chapters and increases the fundraising base. The chapters are primarily responsible for fundraising for our scholarship fund, and many also hold positive body image/ eating disorder awareness events; they have had great events, such as fashion and natural
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hair and makeup shows. We have chapters in North Carolina, New Jersey, and California, and at Boston University, NYU, and Oklahoma State University, among others, and are hoping to open a chapter at Harvard. What do you think makes HEAL such a success, and how do you think you have gained so much support? KS: We have put a lot of time into building a strong infrastructure and organization system for HEAL so that the scholarships run
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In high school, I saw how even my “normal, healthy” friends had problems with body image, and I wanted to negate such feelings in teenagers.
- Kristina Saffran smoothly. I think it is vital to be thoroughly passionate for our cause with all of the time, and effort that you will be putting into it. Personal connections are also really important. Media organizations get emails from X club and Y foundation everyday, so going the extra mile and actually talking to them makes a big difference. I definitely believe in quality over quantity, and face-to-face interactions are really important in this technological age. Where do you see yourself in the future with HEAL? KS: Right now, I'm open to different paths in the future. With a career in public service, I really want to be involved with people. One idea related to HEAL would be to run a treatment center for eating disorders. I would also be interested in running a school or being a school principal. I want to be in charge of larger scale thinking and organizing, but stay in direct contact with the population.
Treatment of an eating disorder in the US ranges from
$500 to $2,000 per day. HarvardLeadershipMag.org
Top: In November 2011, Liana and Kristina were honored at Glamour Magazine's "21 Women of the Year" awards ceremony for their work. Bottom: This past year, Saffran's Project HEAL fundraising event at Harvard Square's Pinkberry was a huge success in raising awareness of the project in the Harvard community.
It is estimated that individuals with eating disorders need anywhere from
3 – 6 months of inpatient care.
Health insurance companies do not typically cover the cost of treating eating disorders. HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
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BALANCING ACT
Between
Chemistry and
Choreography
by Brianne Holland-Stergar
A
lex Willis '14 washes his hands, takes off his safety goggles, notes his final calculations, and leaves the organic chemistry lab. He
nods a polite goodbye to his P.I. and waves quickly to his colleagues before stepping outside into the darkening sky. He walks down the street, his physics book securely under his arm as he contemplates the implications of the latest round of data that he has collected. He feels his phone vibrate in his pocket, takes it out, and glances at the new text message stretching across the LCD screen.
“Choreography emergency. You here?” it reads. “On my way,” he replies, and quickens his pace as he jogs up the stairs of Farkas Hall and enters the studio where the cast of Legally Blonde: The Musical is rehearsing for their upcoming performance. His co-director Haley approaches and says, “The kick-ballchange isn’t working. The Delta Nu’s keep bumping into each other when they sing, ‘Fashion crisis to supervise!’ Let’s teach them something else.” Alex immediately begins imagining kick-lines and formations for the peppy cast members to assume, as he takes off his backpack and begins tonight’s rehearsal. This is a typical evening for
Alex Willis, a concentrator in Chemistry and Physics as well as an accomplished musical theater director here at Harvard. Alex has found a way to combine his seemingly disparate passions for musical theater and science into his extracurricular activities here on campus and has assumed leadership positions in these separate worlds. After successfully directing The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee, Alex has taken on the daunting task of mounting the first Harvard production of Legally Blonde: The Musical during the spring semester of 2012, a task that he balances with his work at two undergraduate chemistry labs and a schedule filled with chemistry and physics classes.
PHOTOS COURTESY DOREEN XU
"Legally Blonde: The Musical," directed and choreographed by Haley Bennet '13 and Alex Willis '14 in April 2012, was full of incredible energy and humor to which Harvard students especially could relate. The Crimson attributed the energy of the show mainly to the choreography of the large dance numbers.
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BALANCING ACT
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A Close-up on Alex Willis
^ Alex Willis '14
The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine recently sat down with Alex to discuss his ability to balance his love of theater with his passion for the sciences. Learn about how his diverse activities have helped him develop a set of diverse leadership qualities. Do you think that your involvement in theater helps you in your academic world and vice-versa? Alex Willis: Most definitely. It may not be a huge surprise, but chemists and physicists often do not have the largest set of social skills. By bringing my theatricality to lab, I feel like I actively help promote discussion and collaboration. Back in the theater, my scientific background helps me take an objective and ordered approach to rehearsals, design making, etc. Or maybe I just have a little OCD. Also, I think having these two "separate lives" keeps me sane.
make lists of priorities? AW: I try to never think of myself as "spread too thin." I try to believe that there is always room for that extra activity. That's probably why I pull out my hair sometimes. But I do make a very conscious effort to plan which days of the week I complete assignments so that I never fall behind. I keep a schedule, do homework whenever I have spare time, and everything seems to fall into place. I assign priorities in the moment. If I'm in lab, lab matters, but if I'm at rehearsal, rehearsal matters. Mixing usually doesn't work well.
What is the most valuable skill that directing for musical theater has taught you? AW: Directing has taught me to utilize every talented person available to me. It is good to a have large and productive team, but it is only successful if you use each person to his highest capability. Everyone will feel more invested in the success of the show and more will get done if each person is involved in their own way. I hope to bring this approach to my lab someday.
Where do you see yourself in ten years – a chemistry lab or an NYC theater? AW: Probably a lab of some sort – academic or private is yet to be determined, or even thought about. But I sometimes have this silly daydream about pulling together some chemistry department talent show once I'm in graduate school to keep the theatrical spirit alive!
Do you ever feel you are spread too thin between all of your activities? How do you balance your time and
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What's your advice to students who want to explore a variety of different interests? AW: Go for it! But take baby steps. Don't dive in without getting your feet wet first.
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AROUND CAMPUS
FORMING YOUNG LEADERS
PHOTO COURTESY KARA KUBARYCH
Preparing the Next Generation of Leaders
The Leadership Institute at Harvard College's annual Youth Lead the Change program helps develop high schoolers into active builders of their communities. by Frank Maldonado
O
n a quiet Saturday morning, students from Boston middle and high schools filled Ticknor Lounge and Fong Audi-
torium for the first Youth Lead the Change (YLC) reunion. The keynote speaker, Professor of Sociology David Ager, presented graduates with a challenge: what can one do right now to help build a stronger community, in Boston and beyond?
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YLC’s purpose is to give students the tools to answer that question with creativity and confidence, but the five-day program is still in its infancy. The Leadership Institute at Harvard College (LIHC) hosted its first YLC program during the last week of August in 2011. Its curriculum teaches leadership skills through group activities, discussions, and case studies to students. Each case study includes questions, possible solutions, and obstacles relevant to that problem to convey the complexity that community
leaders face. For example, one case, which dealt with child homelessness in Boston, taught students about Boston’s recent Leading the Way initiative and outlines the city’s efforts to counteract homelessness in the following years. YLC’s leadership lessons cultivate a culture of public service. In pre-program surveys, students believed that leadership most closely aligned with “public speaking” ability and “influencing” others. However, following the program, students associated
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FORMING YOUNG LEADERS
PHOTO COURTESY KARA KUBARYCH
"
AROUND CAMPUS
It is amazing to see these kids take initiative to create these changes. Frankly, it inspires me to be more proactive old can go out there and do something with such a huge impact, why can't I?
-Brianne Holland-Stergar '13
Left: Harvard's Varsity Women's Basketball Coach Kathy DeLany Smith illustrates how the skills of winning athletic teams - communication, teamwork, trust, and constant feedback and iteration - are critical leadership skills that foster success both on and off the court. Above: Students meet and eat outside Harvard's Emerson Hall, enjoying the warm weather and new friendships forged throughout the week. leadership instead with “inspiring others” and “social impact.” To that end, students ended the program wanting to continue to “learn about different ways that teenagers like us can lead [and] what issues we can work on.” As a result, Teen Change Makers (TCM), a semester-long program focused on high school student-led initiatives, was born. The goal of TCM is to marshal the brainpower and enthusiasm on Harvard’s campus to motivate teens to tackle any problems they perceive in their communities. In this first year of TCM, LIHC’s Social Outreach committee sponsored three bold projects: Erica, 12, uses recycled materials to produce jewelry to sell on her eco-blog and donates all profits to environmental preservation; Sawyer, 13, organizes a peer-to-peer tutoring service in a Boston elementary school; Varoun, 15, aims to revitalize common spaces for the Department for Children and Families while providing foster children with extra resources. “Working on [Teen Change Makers] taught me to be a better communicator and express my ideas. TCM has given me the confidence [to] take on another big project,” Varoun Gulati said. Varoun and his team created 100 emergency kits for foster children that include necessities that are often overlooked. His team has also raised enough funds to furnish two offices
in the Department for Children and Families of Boston. Through the program, Varoun’s fundraisers ranged from selling treats to throwing an awareness event. In the end, his team hosted a wildly successful campaign at his high school to raise money and collect clothing for the Department for Children and Families. For next year, Social Outreach will expand to include five project teams with increased funding. While YLC also empowers its students to realize their potential as leaders, TCM affords mentors the unique opportunity to mature in leadership development by watching their mentees work on their projects. "It is amazing to see these kids take initiative to create these changes. Frankly, it inspires me to be more proactive personally. If a fifteen year old can go out there and do something with such a huge impact, why can't I?" Brianne Holland-Stergar, one of the TCM mentors, said. The TCM team has watched, mesmerized, as students fix real issues in their communities. Despite the difficulties TCM mentees face, they have identified their passions, located a need in their communities, and administered a viable solution with the program’s guidance. While these ambitious young students face the inevitable difficulties associated with any new venture, they teach others that, even without perfect planning and foresight, what matters is that we act.
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FEATURES
ACTIVISM IN ACTION
Making her voice heard Jennifer Siebel Newsom, director of the documentary Miss Representation and First Lady of San Francisco, shares her thoughts on the current media portrayal of women and the journey to equality. by Kavya Shankar How did you get the idea for Miss Representation? Jennifer Newsom: I was inspired to make Miss Representation for several reasons. First, I witnessed an injustice towards women in the media that has worsened over time with the 24-7 news cycle and the advent of “infotainment” and reality television. Today’s media is sending a very dangerous message to young people -- in particular, that the value and power of women lie in their youth, beauty, and sexuality and not in their capacity as leaders. Second, finding out I was pregnant with my first child, a girl, compelled me to make this documentary. I was horrified by the thought of raising a daughter in a culture that demeans, degrades, and disrespects women on a regular basis. Miss Representation is my attempt to right this wrong and put our culture on a path that recognizes and empowers women and girls. Last, I realized that despite the assumption in America that men and women are equal, women’s leadership seems to peak at 17 percent representation: only 17 percent of Congress are women, three percent of media clout (or decision-making) positions are women, and three percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are women. These numbers are abysmal. Women still make around 75 cents on the man’s dollar, and there are very few corporations in America that actually provide flex time or paid family leave so that women can continue their career paths while raising young families. Through this film I hope to shed light on the fact that women must no longer be portrayed as secondclass citizens but rather as equals to men with equal opportunities to succeed in life.
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Above The cover art for the documentary Miss Representation. Right Jennifer Newsom fires up a room while speaking at an event in California.
To what level did your presence in the politi-
How did your role as First Lady of San Francisco hurt and/or help you with the creation of this documentary? JN: I discussed making the documentary long before I met my husband, but being introduced to the world of politics definitely influenced the direction of the documentary, as I was able to make stronger connections between the media’s misrepresentations of women and the underrepresentation of women in leadership. Being First Lady gave me a platform to further express my passion for empowering women and girls and create healthier communities for our families. It also made me more aware of the plight of lower income women and single mothers, many of whom have to work multiple jobs while raising their kids to make ends meet. Finally, I am not convinced politicians are doing enough. In fact, I don’t know of any who are really doing anything substantial to combat the media’s negative impact on our culture. As a result, we as citizens have had to fill the advocacy void. We created Missrepresentation.org for this reason. Why is it so important for the younger generation to have positive women role models? JN: To quote Marian Wright Edelman, “You can’t be what you can’t see.” The film cites that American teenagers, on average, spend 10 hours and 45 minutes a day consuming media. In other words, the media has become the “other parent” in the room. Children learn from these images and messages, and as parents in this day and age it is increasingly more
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difficult, if not impossible, for us to monitor and shelter our children from consuming sex and violence 24-7. These days, our daughters’ heroes are becoming reality stars whose value lies in their youth, beauty, and sexuality. It’s a real loss to our country that our girls set the bar so low and that our boys buy into these limiting notions about our girls. It’s no wonder, therefore, that women make up only 18 percent of America's top leaders in business, the military, religion, media, culture, and entertainment. We don’t teach our girls to value themselves nor do we teach our boys to value women. Moreover, our country has culturally accepted that a man's work is more valuable than a woman's -- and our youth internalize that. With all of this said, we need positive female role models in positions of power and influence to inspire girls to reach their full potential and to make sure our sons grow up believing that women can lead and are equally valuable at the table. How can the younger generation be leaders in ushering a more positive era? JN: It is extremely important that we champion good media and challenge bad media. Women hold more than 86 percent of America’s purchasing power, so we have to use that power if we want to see change. We must stop consuming that which degrades, devalues, and demeans our gender. We have the power to organize, especially with social media, and stop purchasing sexist media. On Twitter, we launched the #NotBuyingIt campaign where individuals are monitoring and calling out offensive advertisements and products every day.
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LEADERSHIP IN TECHNOLOGY
Watching the World The Man who Sees the Future by Andrew Liu
P
aul Otellini is the President and CEO of Intel, the world's largest maker of semiconductor chips. Otellini wasn't always a
semiconductor expert or even a technologist. But he
had a keen sense of the direction of industries and the economy, honed by years of study as an economics major, MBA student, and meticulous observer PHOTO COURTESY INTEL
of the world. This keen sense led him to catch the beginning of the semiconductor wave by joining Intel 38 years ago. Under his leadership, Intel was ranked one of the top 25 companies for leaders worldwide by Fortune Magazine in 2009, and in 2011 it made $12.9
Intel CEO Paul Otellini HarvardLeadershipMag.org
billion in net income. Here is Otellini’s story: HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
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LEADERSHIP IN TECHNOLOGY
PHOTO COURTESY CIO.COM
The first thing I noticed about Paul Otellini was his awareness. When I met him a year ago at the Intel Science Talent Search, the Intel CEO demonstrated an astounding breadth of knowledge; I watched in amazement as he spoke knowledgeably with students about mathematics, medicine, and every research pursuit in between. At first, I wondered how it was possible that such a busy man had gained such a detailed scope of understanding that he could, from a one-minute project description, immediately ask the right questions and propose research applications that had escaped me. But after spending more time with Otellini, I began to appreciate his true abilities as well as what I had mistaken for mere encyclopedic knowledge – his competence in intersecting his knowledge with others’, connecting over mutually interesting topics, and pinpointing others’ passions to unleash them with intriguing questions. It became clear that his abilities stem from his acute awareness of the world, of various scientific fields, of the people around him, their passions and knowledge, and
"
Don’t get blinded by your idea, current technology, or paradigm. Intel is successful by reinventing itself every year.
- Paul Otellini
of himself. Although rarely touted as a virtue, awareness is the cornerstone of Otellini’s success.
Setting the Stage Interestingly, Otellini never had any formal technical or semiconductor background before joining Intel. He was born and raised in a working-class family in San Francisco, studied economics at the University of San Francisco, and later earned his MBA at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley. It was at Haas that Otellini began to develop business skills, evaluating different industries and creating a knowledge base on critical decision-making. It was this meticulously built knowledge base – particularly his study of numerous industries – that ultimately led him to a high-technology company such as Intel. “The focus on software, on consumer electronics software, was not nearly as robust as it is today,” Otellini noted about his transition from business school to Silicon Valley in 1974. But he had spent enough time eyeing the industry to know
Intel's Business Intel is a semiconductor chip maker. While Intel does not sell consumer electronics such as laptops or smartphones, it supplies important parts used to enhance the performance of those devices. Its main product categories include processors, motherboards, chipsets, and Ethernet products. In the 1990s, Intel’s line of Pentium® Processors, which accept, process, and output digital data, became a household name. It has since introduced 2nd and 3rd generation processor technology, called Intel® Core™.
What Are Semiconductors? Semiconductors are materials that have the electrical conductivity between that of a conductor and an insulator. This property allows scientists and modern electronics possible. The most common semiconductor material used commercially today is silicon, a chemical element with atomic number 14. 24
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FEATURESA
PHOTO COURTESY NYTIMES.COM
< Global headquarters
Santa Clara, California Employees 82,500 worldwide 55 percent of employees reside in the U.S. NASDAQ ticker symbol INTC
Quick Facts
Paul Otellini 2011 Statistics Net revenue: $54 billion Earnings per share: $2.39 SOURCE: INTEL.COM
that change was coming. Despite the economic recession and uncertainty surrounding the semiconductor industry (Intel, in particular, had formed just six years earlier after cofounders Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore left Fairchild Semiconductor), Otellini saw Intel as a high-potential company and a leader in semiconductors, which he foresaw to be “the heart of an emerging technology industry for this country.” He leapt right in.
Rising Star While Otellini credits Intel’s atmosphere of meritocracy for his rise to leadership, a candid conversation reveals that his constant self-awareness was key to his growth in this environment. By always reflecting and being self-aware, Otellini kept constant tabs on
what he was good at, what he wanted to do, and what Intel needed from him. Otellini’s selfawareness made him extremely capable of, in his words, “weighing personal goals and skills with opportunities” in various roles where he could demonstrate his strengths and impact Intel significantly. It paid off. In 1980 Otellini persuaded IBM to use Intel’s microprocessors in its new computers, a major sales triumph that put Intel chips into the first generations of revolutionary IBM personal computers. Within seven years, Otellini became manager of Intel’s operation in Folsom, California, and there demonstrated another strength – gentle leadership – with his compassion in handling grief-stricken workers in the wake of two employee suicides. By 2002, in the face of financial losses and a struggle to evolve with the industry, Intel insiders naturally turned to
Otellini, the tested pitchman and compassionate leader, as president and later CEO.
Revolutionizing the Role Leading such a large company to reposition itself in the face of an evolving industry required another type of awareness – awareness of the world, the direction of related industries, and the market for consumer electronics. According to Otellini, “People wanted more computing and more mobile, but they wanted no compromises. With the industry evolving in that direction, we needed to really make the company much more efficient, to move more quickly, and to exit certain businesses and industries.” So Otellini and Intel leadership spent three years restructuring the company for a
Intel CEO's Gordon Moore
Andy Grove
Craig Barrett
Paul Otellini
PHOTOS COURTESY GOOGLE
Robert Noyce
(1968-1975)
(1975-1987) HarvardLeadershipMag.org
(1987-1998)
(1998-2005)
(2005-present)
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PHOTO COURTESY INTEL.COM
FEATURES
future of mobile devices, scientific computing, data centers, and the cloud, building upon Intel’s core competencies to efficiently do so. With today’s record numbers of mobile devices continuing to proliferate and the cloud taking a larger role in IT computing and storage, it seems that Otellini made the right call. He says, “That path has played out quite nicely throughout the financial downturn. The growth we’re seeing today is the result of decisions made five years ago.” Revolutionizing the industry does not stop there. Otellini has also revolutionized the way Intel develops leadership within its own ranks. To ensure continuity of leadership within the company, Intel has devised innovative leadership training programs, harnessing Intel’s talent by giving real corporatelevel problems to small teams to work on and
recommend solutions, some of which Otellini and senior management have incorporated into actual decisions.
Learning to Lead “Leadership is not really taught in undergrad or even grad [school], and it’s difficult to teach to people who lack managerial experience. It comes with wisdom and age, with skill sets and experience,” Otellini points out. However, for those who want to start early (even students not interested in technology careers per se), he suggests a rudimentary knowledge in software is critical to any career, especially one involving leadership, as the understanding of technical concepts is important to implementing ideas and interacting with skilled workers. But his biggest piece of advice is to develop “extremely good sensory
capabilities in terms of what’s going on in the world and adapt boldly based on that awareness.” He notes that this awareness empowered him “to rise to run a very complicated, highly technical company without an engineering degree.” For future leaders building their foundations today, Otellini suggests that awareness of an increasingly complicated world is more important than ever, but that it is becoming easier and easier to attain this awareness. “The tools for this today are much better than 20-30 years ago; we have, for one, the Internet. Don’t get blinded by your idea, current technology, or paradigm. Intel is successful by reinventing itself every year. Reinvent but focus on core capabilities – what can you do that no one else can do? Don’t be afraid to be bold.”
Founding Intel
Founders Gordon Moore (left) and Robert Noyce (right)
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Intel was founded in 1968 by Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce. Moore and Noyce, who earned their PhDs in Chemistry at Caltech and Physics at MIT, respectively, met while working together at Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in 1956. In late 1957, Moore and Noyce left Shockley with the “traitorous eight” to form a new company, Fairchild Semiconductor, which planned to make silicon transistors at a time when geranium was still the most commonly used semiconductor material. After nearly a decade, Moore and Noyce became frustrated with Fairchild’s management and left to found Intel. Together with Andrew Grove, another Fairchild employee, and backed by venture capitalist Arthur Rock, Moore and Noyce went on to build the largest and highest valued semiconductor chip maker in the world.
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BUILDING A DYNASTY
FEATURES
A New Era by Jia Jia Zhang
W
hen Tommy Amaker was named head coach of Harvard menâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s basket-
ball in 2007, he inherited a team that had suffered five consecutive losing
PHOTO COURTESY GIL TALBOT
seasons and never won an Ivy League title. The last time the team played in the NCAA Tournament was 1946. While most considered this basketball program a lost cause, Amaker saw the opportunity of a lifetime. Coach Tommy Amaker > HarvardLeadershipMag.org
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BUILDING A DYNASTY
Instant Replay A brief history of Harvard Basketball’s highest peaks and lowest trenches 1900 Basketball introduced to the Harvard campus by John Kirkland Clark, an 1899 Yale graduate enrolled at the Harvard Law School. The team debuts with an 11-8 season. 1920 Harvard basketball returns to campus after an 11-year hiatus. Successful coach Edward Wachter is called upon to rebuild the program and enjoys a span of nine winning seasons in a 10-year period. 1930 The team moves from Hemenway Gym into the Malkin Athletic Center. 1946 A Harvard team coached by Floyd S. Stahl and captained by Wyndol Gray ’46 debut regular season with just one defeat. Overall, 1982 The team moves into the Lavietes Pavilion, where they are still housed today. 1984 Harvard establishes an NCAA record for team free throw shooting with an amazing 82.2 percent. The record still stands today. 2005
2007 Tommy Amaker takes over for Frank Sullivan as head coach. 2011 Harvard breaks school record by spot in the post-season National Invitation 2012 maintaining a national ranking, capturing the Battle 4 Atlantis Championship, and winning NCAA Tournament appearance in 66 years. SOURCE: GOCRIMSON.COM
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Although Harvard was not known for basketball, it was arguably the most well known university in the world. Amaker knew Harvard’s brand name and academic excellence could help him in building the basketball program from the ground up. “We wanted to be successful in the right way — the Harvard way,” he said. It was not going to be easy. After his first season here, their record fell to 8-22 overall, 3-11 in the Ivy League. Harvard’s high admissions standards and lack of athletic scholarships hurt their recruitment efforts. Additionally, Harvard did not have a basketball reputation to help them attract talented players. Amaker sought to turn these challenges around. “The vision we had for this was that it could be a spectacular journey, and a magical one, because this is Harvard,” he said. The team and the university lent itself to the perfect underdog story, and the worst thing that could happen to a recruit was that he would graduate from an outstanding university. “We wanted them to look at our program and think, why not?” The university changed its financial aid policy in 2006 to lower cost barriers, making Harvard basketball instantly more appealing. That change enabled Amaker to lay the groundwork for his basketball program. “The basic blueprint we started out with five years ago was being an upstart, going from an upstart to a contender, a contender to a winner, a winner to a champion, and a champion to a dynasty.”
The Game Plan One lesson that has been critical to Amaker’s success at Harvard is understanding whom he represents, a lesson he learned
from his past coach at Duke, Mike Krzyzewki, known as Coach K. “[Coach K] recognized that his pillar, or his mainstay in growing his basketball program, was Duke,” Amaker said. To him, Coach K was more than a coach— he was an ambassador and cared deeply for his institution. “To learn the basic fundamental lesson of understanding who I represent, using that and presenting that — I learned that from him on day one, when he recruited me as a 17-year-old kid.” Here at Harvard, Amaker has tried to infect his team with the same loyalty and conviction through leading by example. In presenting his program, he has always stayed true to the university’s identity as an academic institution. “How did we build this program? We recognized that we represent arguably the greatest institution in higher education here at Harvard, ” he said. Losing sight of this, he continued, would have been a mistake. Amaker realized early that Harvard was a university that cared a lot about what its students had to say. When Amaker was first considered for the coaching job, he was interviewed by the returning upperclassmen on the team, an uncommon process in college basketball. The players were looking for a leader who was committed to their institution. “They wanted to know that whatever coach was going to be their new coach was going to be enthused about being at Harvard.” After an early morning meeting at the Murr Center over orange juice and bagels, they decided Amaker was fit for the job. When asked whether he felt less pressure in leading a basketball program with lower expectations, Amaker responds that he never thought about it that way. “Our standards are incredibly
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BUILDING A DYNASTY
high, and we love that. Anything we have been able to achieve is because of, I believe, the standards we have here at Harvard.” Being able to turn what many would consider a handicap into an advantage has helped Amaker shift his focus from pressure to perform to the task at hand. He has been able to make use of everything Harvard has to offer, both on and off the basketball court. Amaker spent one year at the Duke Business School before leaving to take an assistant coaching job. He draws parallels between building his basketball program and running a small business. “You’re managing a group. You have a staff that you are in charge of. You try to grow, market, sell, recruit. You think about strategy.”
A New Era
Notable Harvard Basketball Alumni Wyndol Gray ’46: Star of the NBA’s Boston Celtics and St. Louis Hawks J. Michael Crichton ’64: Author of Jurassic Park Al Gore ’69: former Vice President and Recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize
GIL TALBOT
PHOTO COURTESY
Amaker has always said that the best way to turn things around is to have success, and the Harvard basketball program has experienced several recent successes, including the NBA breakout performance of 2010 graduate Jeremy Lin. Amaker praises Lin as an incredible representative for the institution and credits him with giving the program exposure and credibility.
Additionally, Lin has been able to show kids around the country that they can have dreams of going to an Ivy League school and making it in the NBA. The team’s success has also been historic. In 2010, Amaker’s fourth season, they shared their first Ivy League Championship with Princeton, and this year, they won the championship outright for the first time in Harvard’s history. The team was ranked nationally and prevailed over No. 4 Connecticut and No. 22 Florida State to take home the Battle 4 Atlantis Championship. They went to the NCAA tournament for the first time in 66 years. “There aren’t any athletic or careerwise achievements that I would rank or place above that because of the significance it means to so many,” he said. What’s next for Harvard men’s basketball? For Amaker, it’s building a dynasty. “Can we continually put Harvard basketball in a position that we are incredibly relevant, significant, and are thought of as a program that can become a dominant team in men’s basketball in the Ivy League? If we can do that, then I think we’ve created a dynasty. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to achieve that. We’re hopeful we can do it in our lifetime.”
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TAKING RISKS
From Start Up to Power Up
P H O T O C O U R T E S Y L E A R N V E S T. C O M
By Jenna Louie
Alexa von Tobel of LearnVest
I
n the midst of the worst recession since the Great Depression, Alexa von Tobel ’06 did the unthinkable: she took a leap of faith. Pursuing her dream to create an online resource to make financial information accessible to millions of women across the country, von Tobel founded LearnVest and, in just under five months, raised $1.1 million of seed capital from angel investors. Since then she has closed almost $25 million from Accel Partners, the venture firm responsible for backing Facebook and others. 30
The Company LearnVest, a combination of the words learn, earn, and invest, has quickly risen the ranks, earning a place on Fast Company’s list of “25 Women-Run Startups to Watch” along with Forbes’ “Top 100 Websites for Women,” Business Insider’s Digital 100 list and Time Magazine’s annual list of “50 Best Websites.” However, LearnVest’s meteoric rise came from unpredictable beginnings, which von Tobel described as a terrifying time. According to von Tobel, her life before deciding to drop out of Harvard Business School (HBS) had run along a pretty well-defined path. During her undergrad years at Harvard, she studied Psychology, was a member of the Varsity Diving team, was involved in theatre, and wrote a thesis on Bhutan. She was admitted to HBS as a senior in college and decided to defer for two years to enter the same field that just over ten percent of Harvard graduates matriculate to: Wall Street. Yet, after returning to HBS after a twoyear stint with Morgan Stanley, von Tobel’s life took a sharp turn. It all started when von Tobel realized that, despite studying at high caliber institutions, she had never received any formal education on effectively managing her personal finances. Having researched possible
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sources for several years and come back disappointed by the lack of options available, von Tobel took matters into her own hands. In 2008, she dropped out of HBS and moved to Manhattan, where she started LearnVest with funding from investors like Goldman Sachs, and officially launched the company in December 2009. Although it was a frightening, uncertain time in her life, she now recounts, “What was actually more terrifying for me was that I was going one more day not building a business that I was meant to build.”
The Leadership Now CEO, von Tobel is constantly moving from morning until night. On the day that we spoke, her schedule began with a 7:30 a.m. meeting and wasn’t going to clear until 11 p.m. that night. But according to von Tobel, she loves what she does. Citing the importance of always caring about the people you work with and having their best interests at heart, she has tried to create an environment where people do not just work hard, but are respected and recognized for the value that they bring to the company, “Here at LearnVest we have really genuine relationships and a community based on trust.”
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Yet in the fast-paced tech world at a rapidly growing startup, that is easier said than done. Through her trials and errors, she had the following takeaways to share: “You have to try to be as thoughtful as possible but still maintain speed.” Doing this successfully not only entails honesty and transparency, but a level of comfort to be able to say, ‘Look, I made a mistake, and here’s what I really think’ when things go wrong. She also stressed the importance of listening to your gut. For answers to fundamental questions like ‘What is the right thing to do?’ von Tobel said that, in the end, it’s a mix of good bosses, good mentors, and good books, and going with her gut.
> Alexa’s Recommended Books
The Journey In less than six years, she has gone from a Harvard senior to founder and CEO of a company with innovative approaches to financial services that have resulted in headlines in major outlets like The New York Times, Bloomberg Businessweek, CNBC, and The Huffington Post. Always interested in creating new and better things, she has followed her passion for personal finance by building the vision of a better lifestyle for millions of women based on financial responsibility. As she sees it, you either are an entrepreneur or you are not an entrepreneur, and von Tobel has always been one by constantly building and improving.
-The Lean Startup Fostering an approach to companies that are both more capital The Lean Startup
Recently Launched at LearnVest: Personalized Financial Planning creating elaborate The Lean Startup
In a study commissioned by
the biggest problem of planning help them to better manage
access a
a certain
that the largest
LearnVest offers a variety of individualized online financial planning tools to help women take control of their personal finances.
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- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
it is critical
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INSTIGATING CHANGE
Revitalizing and Reenergizing by Celestine Warren
B
ill McKibben is no stranger to controversy. In his 2007 book Deep Economy, the author and activist questions the notion that economic growth equates to overall progress. He writes, “What should development look like? … It should worry less about what’s ideal from a clas-
sical economist’s view of markets and far more about what’s ecologically possible. It should aim not at growth but at durability.” With this ecologically-minded approach, McKibben has exploded conventional ideas about how change occurs. In a phone interview, McKibben expressed his discontent with current methods of enacting change, saying, “I think that for a long time scientists just assumed that if they talked to policy makers and explained to them the problem that they would do the right thing and that has not worked. And the reason that has not worked is because of the financial muscle of the fossil fuel industry. They’ve been able to – while scientists were talking in one ear – bellow a toxic mix of threats and promises in the other ear. And that has kept any action from happening.” Instead of continuing the fight to enact change at the policy level, McKibben has taken a grassroots approach. The Middlebury professor has been an iconic leader in the fight
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against climate change for more than 20 years. McKibben sees himself first and foremost as a journalist who spends time organizing and speaking to “help move things along.” His book The End of Nature, published in 1988, was serialized in The New Yorker and is considered to be the first book about climate change. Driven by data and reporting, he has managed to continue to disseminate information about climate change to a broad audience through the movement: 350. 350.org, with “350” representing the maximum safe amount of carbon ppm in the atmosphere, was developed in 2007 at Middlebury College by McKibben and seven college seniors. The group has used grassroots organizational tactics to mobilize more than 15,000 rallies in every country on earth except North Korea. CNN has called this movement-building
HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
the “most widespread political activity in the planet’s history.” A combination of orderly organization, a well-planned website, and relentless passion has contributed to 350’s success. As McKibben noted of the founding students, “There were seven of them and there were seven continents. Each one of them took a continent and went to work organizing. The guy who got the Antarctic also got to do the internet.” With this attitude, the group has developed both an international and a viral presence. The engaging website is easy to navigate and understand, with simple explanations for some of the major questions in climate change. Several places on 350.org encourage visitors to sign up to become involved and to submit photos of rallies in which they have taken part. “We make things happen in the real world, but we are able to bring those things together
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INSTIGATING CHANGE
FEATURES
Thousands of people from around the world have banded together to participate in what 350.org calls "mass public action" to bring climate change to the forefront. Founder Bill McKibben (above) has led numerous campaigns and public actions globally, including in Santa Fe (top left), New Mexico (far left) and Sydney, Australia (left). (those rallies and demonstrations) on the web in a way that makes them much larger than the sum of their parts. 350 wouldn’t be possible without Gmail and Flickr and text messaging and all the things we use around the world,” McKibben said. The driving force behind the movement is people power. About the organization’s tactics, McKibben described, “Since we’re never going to have as much money as the fossil fuel industry, we need other currencies to work in. Those other currencies are passion, spirit, creativity, and sometimes they’re our bodies -- sometimes we’ve got to go to jail and things…. There are scientists who think we’ve waited too long to get started on this, and there are political scientists who think there’s too much money on the other side. And they could be right, we’ll find out. But I’m very glad that we’re finally building the movement, and that movement building is going very well.” The movement building is not for a select few, however. When asked about what advice he would give to undergraduates, McKibben impatiently brushed aside the question. Seemingly annoyed, he replied, “Well, look, climate change is kind of a big deal. I wish I could tell everybody it’s okay to wait four years or eight years and become fully established in society and go to work from the inside and so on, but I’m afraid that physics and chemistry don’t
give us that kind of window. It’s important to get acting now, and there are vehicles to do that.” Most of all, the charge spans beyond college students. When asked about the strengths of the movement, the activist replied, “We’ve exploded the idea that environmentalism is something for rich white people. Most of the people we work with around the world are poor, black, brown, Asian, and young, because that’s what the world is. And they’re every bit as concerned with the future as everyone else is, maybe more so because the future bears down hard on you in those places.” McKibben’s own involvement in leading groups and standing at the forefront himself began in his days at Harvard. While his mailing address was at Kirkland House, he said that he lived most days at the Harvard Crimson. He
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Since we’re never going to have as much money as the fossil fuel industry, we need other currencies to work in. Those other currencies are passion, spirit, creativity, and sometimes they’re our bodies.
- Bill McKibben
explored all types of journalism: acquainting himself with Cambridge while covering the city, and reporting on the 1980 presidential campaign during his time traveling with the candidates. Classwork was not the focus of his time in college: when asked about his concentration he replied, “That’s a good question. I think it was government? But as I say I was a middling student at best.” While his classwork performance may have been, as he described it, “poor,” McKibben nevertheless made the most of his college experience. He mentioned that the early 1980s were “interesting days at Harvard” in that “it was a high point of the anti-apartheid movement on campus, so I got to watch some good organizers.” This work covering social organizers, he said, likely taught him some of the skills that he was still putting to use. McKibben’s own life narrative perhaps sets a much more attainable example for young people to follow and emulate if they want to make a difference in the world. McKibben’s movement and his philosophy make it quite clear that it’s not about the school you go to or the grades you get. It’s about passion, commitment, and the willingness to take the initiative and create the change you want to see in the world.
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FEATURES
FULLBRIDGE PROGRAM
Leadership Lessons
PHOTOS COURTESY MICHAEL DENNIS
The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine sits down with the former CEO of Random House to discuss leadership in the real world.
Peter Olson
P
eter Olson, Harvard JD/MBA, is the co-CEO and founder of The Fullbridge Program. Formerly the Chairman and CEO of Random House, Inc., he built the company into the world's largest English-language publishing house during his ten-year tenure. He former-
ly served on the Executive Board of Bertelsmann and was previously an attorney and investment banker in Japan and Germany. What has been your toughest leadership challenge either as co-CEO of the Fullbridge program, Chairman and CEO of Random House, or in any other capacity? PETER OLSON: [The] toughest leadership challenge is separating your personal likes in people from your decisions about people. You work with a lot of people and with some of them you develop a personal connection—a strong personal tie—and the degree of that affinity does not necessarily correspond with their competence. The hardest thing to do in leadership is make the necessary tough decisions of letting people go that you like but aren’t good enough for the job. How have you learned to overcome or handle that challenge? PO: Well, my approach is first to agonize over
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[it]. You have to realize that as the leader your job is not to be the most popular person. Your goal is not to be liked by everyone, and you are not everyone’s buddy. If I had one message to students starting college, it would be that leadership in the world of business is very different from participation in extracurricular activities at college or high school. It is very far removed from a popularity contest. There is virtually no correlation that I have seen between people who do really well with leadership positions in high school and leadership positions in business. The success criteria are completely different. In high school you want to be admired and liked by as many people as possible to win a leadership position. In business, it’s outcomes driven—very different. As a consequence, I think that many people come to college and assume, based on their high
HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
school experience, that they are not natural leaders. They underestimate their potential to become leaders. The key qualities to a leader are decisiveness, being able to judge a person’s ability to make a contribution, and a strategic sense of what matters and what doesn’t. Those are not the criteria that are generally applied to selecting people to lead extracurricular activities before we graduate. A leader needs to balance the needs from multiple constituencies along with his or her organization’s core vision. How did you go about balancing those needs? PO: There is a balancing act that every leader has in terms of deriving which outcomes matter for which constituencies and which constituencies are important. I had a strategy that I developed fairly early on as CEO
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FULLBRIDGE PROGRAM
FEATURES
of Random House, for example, that defined Random House as the most attractive home for talent. The premise was that if we had the best people, particularly the best editors and sales people, we would attract the best authors to write the best books. As a consequence we would sell more books and make more money (which is how it worked out fortunately). A successful strategy is one that addresses all the important goals that you want to achieve through all of those constituencies and ties them together in a way that makes that balancing act very clear. What are the most important constituencies and goals, and which ones are relatively more important? At Random house and also at Fullbridge, the quality of the people and the product that we had was really more important than short-term results. A leader has to have a very clear sense in [his or her] head of what that is and be consistent about it because otherwise, he is buffeted by changing agendas and demands. Then, there is no consistency. I think that what people want from a leader, first and foremost, is consistency. Secondly, you want someone who is decisive. By that I mean someone who will make decisions when they are needed—taking responsibility for the outcomes of those positions even when they are not successful, when they are not blaming others for when things go wrong;. Can you tell us about entrepreneurship and what it takes to be successful? PO: The most common misconception about entrepreneurship is that a flash of light will occur, a great idea will unveil itself, and then it will all take care of itself. There may have been a few examples of companies that have started that way, but entrepreneurship is more of an iterative process that starts with one or a small group of people with a sense of the area in which they are shamelessly committed to doing something. I don’t think that successful business ideas basically pop out of a head fully developed. It is a very painful and interesting gestation process and it is paralleled by an intense emotional rollercoaster. There are days that seem euphoric that are often followed by days of deep despair. For Fullbridge, we had just produced an entrepreneurship program after we started our initial program because we realized that there was a large number of students whose interests were not primarily how to be successful in large established organizations, but how to be successful in building their own business or in joining one. My advice to someone who wants to be an entrepreneur is don’t necessarily think that you have to be an entrepreneur from day one out of college. There is no harm in getting experience in an established company or another startup before you actually start your own business. HarvardLeadershipMag.org
Peter Olson interacts with the students in the Fullbridge Leadership Program , a four-week experience that aims to prepare college students and recent graduates for the professional world.Founded in 2010 by Olson and his wife, Candice Carpenter Olson, the company is based in Harvard Square and launched its first pilot programs in January 2012. HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
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SKILLS
BUILDING A PERSONAL LEGACY
Stay True to Yourself
Looking Back From the Other Side of the River By Linxi Wu
H
arvard is above all a place of inspiration, but what
Focus on the Big Picture
does it take to live up to our aspirations?
Although the first job out of college seems incredibly important for students in school, Edmund Soriano recommended open-mindedness and a long-term perspective while taking the first steps after college. “One thing to remember about your first job is it’s just a job,” he said. “At the end of the day, bigger decisions will determine your narrative.” Kraft himself is testament to the tolerance for unpredictability that a long career demands. Whether it was playing gigs in New York City, working at a radio station, or producing a Muppets album, Kraft took on many offbeat roles before becoming one of the most influential people in Hollywood as chief executive of Fox Music.
The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Maga-
zine interviewed three alumni, each from a different generaSHUNELLA LUMAS PHOTO
tion of graduates, who share their best advice for attaining success and happiness outside the Ivy League gates. These alumni understand best the hopes, meaning, and excitement of the Harvard experience. Speaking from different stages of life, they collectively offer a glimpse of the future - from the first job to living the dream. 36
As Robert Kraft sat with a group of friends in Lamont Library one afternoon of his junior spring, the conversation turned to life after college. “Everybody seemed very anxious and confused and conflicted about whether they should try this one thing… and what was the right move to make, and what if they made a mistake?” Kraft recalled. While the hairstyles, dining hall entrees, and means of communication have changed since 1975, anxiety about the future has not. A heightened sense of responsibility to find one’s calling in life has always been a part of the Harvard experience, and the task has not gotten any easier over time. Kate Nowak does not believe there is a need for students to be concerned if they have not found that special passion just yet. It will come. “The key is to stay true to yourself, which means pursuing your genuine interests, even those that may seem unrelated to a career path or unpopular, and freely expressing yourself,” Nowak said. The realization will come to those who “pay attention to the subtle signs along the way that are pointing you in the right direction.” Nowak also stressed that it is fine and even wise to be flexible along the way. “If the journey stops being fun,” she said, “then change your course.”
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Kate Nowak ‘03 (Winthrop House) Senior Manager, Business Development in Fuels and Chemicals at Solazyme Robert Kraft ’76 (Dunster House) President / CEO at Fox Music
Kraft credits his success not to any individual position but to a persistent focus on music and songwriting. With a philosophy to do “whatever led [him] to music,” he took on many different roles that helped him build a repertoire of skills and experiences around his passion. It was this richness of knowledge coupled with an expertise in music that Kraft said ultimately equipped him to excel in his job today. His devotion to the art helped him endure the short-term struggles that came along the way.
Follow the Trail Part of the challenge of leaving college is learning how to manage uncertainty and navigate ambiguity in life. Soriano said he believes the first step is to recognize and seize what Harvard has to offer. “It’s an open environment [at Harvard]. If you are really interested in something, you are empowered and given the resources to chase after what you want,” he said. Kraft agrees. After asking the Office of Career Services for help moving forward in music, he was only able to obtain the contact information for an alumnus vaguely connected to the field: an editor at Time Magazine. Although the editor had no advice for a budding musician, he was able to refer Kraft to a friend who worked as a composer. From there, Kraft met with many more people in the industry. This taught him a valuable lesson. Even when the goals seem far and unfamiliar, Kraft said he believes that “there is always a bread crumb to follow.” Similarly, Nowak is a big proponent of
deliberate and thorough research. “Talk to as many people as possible about different career paths,” she recommended. “I spoke to over 100 people during my last job search and I am convinced I landed in a role that I love as a result.”
The most formidable obstacle to chasing after big dreams can be a lack of confidence, and it can be especially difficult at Harvard to maintain self-confidence among wildly accomplished peers. Nowak said that selfappreciation in such an environment can make all the difference. “Never forget that you are surrounded by these students because you belong in their company,” she said. “Remember each student adds value to the community in a different way. The key is to never lose sight or discount your own strengths and talents in moments when insecurities creep up.”
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If the journey stops being fun then change your course.
- Kate Nowak
She also sees a way to take advantage of the competition. “Being surrounded by people who challenge you is the best way to grow,” she said. “Try hard to learn from classmates whom you admire rather than to feel intimidated by, and remember that they can learn a lot from you as well.” Confidence is also achieved outside of
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SKILLS
PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT KRAFT
Edmund Soriano ‘11 (Adams House) Analyst, Investment Banking (Industrials Group) at Morgan Stanley
PHOTO COURTESY KATE NOWAK
Advice from (left to right):
PHOTO COURTESY EDMUND SORIANO
BUILDING A PERSONAL LEGACY
comparisons with others. Soriano emphasized that success is not always relative as “there is no clearly defined measure of it.” He noted that people can steadily build their own confidence through repetitions of small victories. “Confidence is the reward of setting your own goals and achieving them,” he said. “So start small and take care to deliver excellence every time.”
Enjoy the Company Kraft, Nowak and Soriano all had the same final piece of advice for today’s college students: enjoy the company. When asked for their favorite memories of Harvard, Soriano reminisced about dancing with The Filippino Forum in Cultural Rhythms and hosting the Heaven and Hell party in Adams with his roommates. Nowak fondly recalled time spent in Winthrop House, where she developed lifelong friendships in the nurturing community. And for Kraft, the best part of Harvard was simply “the Radcliffe girls.” “One thing to remember is that the time in college is truly limited,” Soriano said. “Take your time to enjoy all that college has to offer, especially the good company. Don’t be afraid to slow down once in a while.” “Be motivated, curious, and driven to succeed, but never neglect friendships and fun in the process,” Nowak said. “The best thing I walked away with from Harvard was lifelong friends who have helped me find my way and grow. Taking a break from your academic and career pursuits to enjoy your community and foster friendships will actually help you achieve your goals.”
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SKILLS
BUILDING SOCIAL CAPITAL
Social Captial, Defended Harvard Professor Robert Putnam explains how to sow social capital in organizations and why it is crucial to their success. PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT PUTNAM
by Vicky Venegas
Social Capital: As Explained by Robert Putnam
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The core idea of social capital is so simple that I’m embarrassed to say it: social networks have value to people within the networks and they you have the good fortune to live in a community or work in an organization where people pitch in and help out, you can get more done than you could with the same tools and the same training but in a different community where you Social networks are very powerful and are In areas where there is high social capital, kids do better, infant mortality is lower, teen pregnancy is lower, crime rate is lower, people pay their taxes more readily, the government works better: in the states in America where It is also true that organizations that have higher
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HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
Harvard is teeming with leaders who are organizing conferences, building movements, and running fundraisers. But these leaders of the more than 400 official student groups on campus can be plagued by the same oversight. By singlemindedly pursuing end results, they often forget the importance of building a culture that fosters teamwork among their members. The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine sat down with Professor Robert Putnam, the Peter and Isabel Malkin Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, to get some tips on why building social capital into organizations is important to their long-term success. Social capital refers to the collective benefits reaped from cooperation among individuals or groups. According to Putnam, the trick to fostering it is to intentionally build connections among an organization's members. It takes more than just listening to what people have to say. Putnam likened a good leader to a good cruise director: one who pays attention to the opportunities people have to connect to each other. The more people connect with one another, the more they can trust each other and work as a team, resulting in higher productivity and efficiency. With higher trust comes an environment of
general reciprocity rather than specific reciprocity. According to Putnam, this boils down to people wasting less time on keeping tabs on who owes them favors and to whom they owe favors, and more time spent helping one another out. “It’s more efficient in the same way that a money economy is more efficient than a barter economy. If the norm is such that you just do it without doing a close calculation of whether you owe it to someone, people are more productive,” Putnam said. The other benefit of having higher trust within an organization is that the leader can more easily delegate. Leaders cannot handle making all of the day-today decisions. They need time to look at the big picture and, as Putnam puts it, “reflect on leadership issues.” In an organization where a leader can trust his or her members, there is more delegating and, as a result, more work gets done. “In the end, it’s not like you want a happy talk organization. You want an organization that does things,” Putnam said. “Every organization is trying to do something, and every organization would be better off if there was a relatively higher level of social capital within that organization.”
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LEADERSHIP IN SCIENCE
SKILLS
Skillsfor
Scientists by Caitlin Pendleton
E
llen Rim â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;12 bends over the microscope, peering at
the microscopic worm C. elegans underneath. Of all the skills scientists employ, patience is what she
PHOTO COURTESY SARA ROBINSON
needs now.
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HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
HarvardLeadershipMag.org
Gary Ruvkun, Molecular Geneticist
PHOTO COURTESY CAROLINA SMITH
SKILLSA
PHOTO COURTESY ELLEN RIM
PHOTO COURTESY GARY RUVKUN
LEADERSHIP IN SCIENCE
The injections are arduous, time-consuming, and often failures: She has spent hours with this batch trying to inject the worms with synthetic DNA to make them florescent, but successes have been far and few. “Research takes patience, resilience, and self-motivation,” she said. Rim worked at molecular biologist Gary Ruvkun’s lab at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Genetics for the last two and a half years of her undergraduate experience. Including Ruvkun and Rim, the lab has about 25 members. In fields fraught with stereotypes, science nonetheless calls for unique spins on universal leadership qualities. Ruvkun and Rim share the ones they have found the most surprising and prevalent.
Pass the Death Test Some consider the most fearsome peril of writing research papers to be inaccuracy in the form of mathematical errors or unfounded leaps of logic. Ruvkun disagrees. “The most common mode of failure is to be boring. You decide to work on boring stuff that no one really cares about, so your work doesn’t get published in good places,” Ruvkun said.
HarvardLeadershipMag.org
Ellen Rim, Harvard Class of 2012 Rather than regurgitating old information, scientists should embrace bold leadership by exploring new avenues in research, he said. To drive home the importance of originality, he advises scientists to remember one particular question. “In the tenure review process, it’s called the ‘death test.’ They ask, ‘If this person were dead, what would his or her field look like?’ So you want to do things that you don’t think others are doing,” Ruvkun said. In the last five years, a group of scientists in Ruvkun’s lab have been doing experimental work on how worms detect poisons. The research, though still in its infancy, seeks to connect worms’ ability to detect poisons with anorexia in human beings. “No one has attacked this the way we are,” Ruvkun said. “I call that leadership, where you take people with you wide for a wild ride, even if the hypothesis ultimately turns out wrong.”
Embrace Your Inner Poker Player “Science has always had revolutionary aspirations. To me, that sort of defines leadership,” Ruvkun said. But Ruvkun said that most scientists fail to be revolutionary in their field and therefore
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SKILLS
LEADERSHIP IN SCIENCE
"
In a lab, like anywhere else, different skill sets complement each other.
- Ellen Rim
fail the Death Test because they are too preoccupied with “memorizing the little stuff.” Instead, he said, scientists must be leaders by looking past their own work and to the bigger picture – in other words, the history of science – to gauge their work’s usefulness and novelty. The opposite path is to remain stuck doing the same “fruitless” experiments “again and again and again” without yielding important results. One key to scientific revolution and accomplishment, Ruvkun said, is to know when to quit an experiment or hypothesis. “It’s like playing poker and knowing when you have a winning hand. Don’t spend your life stuck drawing for a pair of twos. Don’t do that. Fold and start over,” Ruvkun said.
Don’t Hold Hands and Sing Kumbayah In Ruvkun’s lab, one member per week presents his or her work to the group, effectively sharing twenty weeks’ worth of research by the time his or her turn comes. Part of the purpose of this structure is to foster “sibling rivalry” – a concept Ruvkun said helps people flourish and produce their best work. “It is the best motivator in the world… The ones who make breakthroughs, it’s obvious to everyone who they are,” Ruvkun said. “That’s a form of leadership, to make sure that people have access to models of excellence.” One of the wisest things Ruvkun said he had ever heard about excellence came from a mother who was deciding where to send her daughter to high school. “She goes, ‘My kid always does average. So I want to send my kid to wherever the average is highest.’ And I think there’s a lot of truth to that. If you’re surrounded by people who have a high level, you’ll rise to that level,” Ruvkun said. “Don’t just hold hands and sing kumbayah. Learn from people. Compete.”
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HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
Beware the Myth of the Brilliant Loner Ruvkun said popular culture glorifies the success of the brilliant albeit misanthropic loner-scientist – think John Nash circa A Beautiful Mind. Such glorification, he said, is not entirely unfounded. “Part of being a social being is accepting orthodoxies, knowing what the norms are and making sure you’re not abnormal. It’s essentially subscribing to an orthodoxy. And the very best scientists are the ones who don’t subscribe to that orthodoxy,” Ruvkun said. But science is no solitary pursuit, and misanthropes are only halfway to being the ideal scientist. The other side of scientific culture is the art of presentation, rendering charisma a necessary skill. Ruvkun said the postdoctoral students in his lab who are entering the job circuit must grapple with the challenge of convincing potential employers why they should be hired, necessitating charisma as they market themselves or their research. “Science does select for a certain gregariousness. The real misanthropes get left behind because they don’t do too well at the level of finding a job,” Ruvkun said. “It’s bad because our culture wants scientists to be completely unorthodox, but you can’t abandon all orthodoxy.” Even after a successful job search, Rim said the inner workings of labs require socialization. Talking about research developments, writing reports and papers, and asking for help all render communication “the most important skill a scientist can have.” “In a lab like anywhere else, different skill sets complement each other,” Rim said.
Be a Good Seamstress Ruvkun said that if he were to write the perfect letter of recommendation for one of his lab members, it would be for the scientist who excels in an often overlooked
HarvardLeadershipMag.org
PHOTO COURTESY FIKMIK
LEADERSHIP IN SCIENCE
Prepare for Failure PHOTO COURTESY DOUGLAS STEVENS
Ruvkun said about half the people in modern molecular biology stay in the academic track. The other half goes into the field of pharmaceutical biotechnology, pursuing higher salaries and sometimes starting their own companies. People often overestimate the number of times that this intersection of academia with industry results in commercial success. Despite the work and investment poured into biotechnology, Ruvkun was blunt about projects’ success rates. “Mostly, they fail. Venture capital is built on a high level of extinction and a small amount of super-success,” he said. On the other hand, academia is a comparatively more stable field. “Everyone in my lab who has left academia has changed jobs ten times in twenty years,” Ruvkun said. The experience of failure in labs is fresh for Rim. She said she has found that experiments require finesse and attention to detail. Like any leader, scientists need to take responsibility for those details. The smallest mistakes can derail an entire experiment. “Little things, like making a reaction mix – if you mess up, forget to put in a little reagent, your reaction is not going to work,” Rim said. “You have to care.”
HarvardLeadershipMag.org
Start-Ups for Dummies: A Formula for Success Although scientists are typically anything but dummies, they often know very little about what it takes to start a company. Larry Bock, serial high tech and life sciences entrepreneur, shares his formula for start-up success.
1. Start with a big idea. It’s just as hard to create a company around a small idea as it is around a big one, so you might as well pursue the big idea. Mine the scientific literature, research industry trends, and network with innovative people.
3. Hire brilliant commanders and recruit brave soldiers. In start-ups, hire commanders who know every intricacy of the scientific field, and recruit brazen soldiers who will march into battle without fear. Keep in mind that these brave hearts tend to be younger and more openminded, yet unscarred by experience.
5. Head back to the village to pray. When times get tough or all hope seems lost, smart people can still adapt and survive on platform technologies. Resiliency and flexibility are important skills to develop.
PHOTO COURTESY LUXCAPITAL.COM
skill: manual dexterity. Ruvkun recalled a Harvard professor of his who called it “thinking with your hands.” Those who “think” the best, Ruvkun said, often produce the best experiments. “My generation did a lot of hands-on training that made people think with hands. I’m not sure that’s going on in the current generation. All people do is sit in front of their computers,” Ruvkun said. “Those who are proficient at hands-on work, they’re the good car mechanics and seamstresses.”
SKILLSA
2. Find a habitable planet. Once you’ve found a big idea, assess its commercial potential. Have you discovered interesting science or a real business opportunity? Consult as many experts and trusted individuals as possible, and pay close attention to your technology’s time to market and market potential. If you can’t convince yourself the idea can be transformative now, start over.
4. Finance the expedition. When raising your first round of financing, create scarcity by taking small amounts of money from many funding sources. Investors will never give you money now if they think they will have opportunities to do so later, with reduced risk. Instead of raising money when you need it, raise it before you need it. And when the cookies ($$) are being handed out, take them, as you never know what will happen in the future.
Larry Bock is a successful serial entrepreneur who has founded, co-founded, or financed the early stage growth of 40 companies that have achieved an aggregate market capitalization in excess of $30 billion. He is the current Executive Director of the USA Science and Engineering Festival. Larry earned his B.A. in Biochemistry from Bowdoin College and his MBA in Finance from UCLA. HARVARD UNDERGRADUATE LEADERSHIP MAGAZINE FALL 2012
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SKILLS
PITFALLS OF POOR PUBLICITY
Turning the Cogs One student group has chosen personal interaction over e-mails to publicize events. A member explains the noteworthy results. Student Perspective
by Craig Herron
T
he Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) is the branch of the Leadership Institute at Harvard College (LIHC) that specializes in leadership training and development among the Harvard undergraduate community.
LDI uses a two-pronged approach to leadership development. We invite individuals who we think exemplify leadership to share their own experiences in leadership development with students. We also plan workshops to help students develop their own leadership through practice. As Jon Doochin, co-founder of LIHC, writes in Passion and Purpose: Stories from the Best and Brightest Young Business Leaders, “Leadership development is a trialand-error process that causes individuals to reexamine their perspective and develop a vocabulary of underlying theories that define their personal leadership style.” Students who are planning events must participate in the trial-and-error process to develop their own leadership style. But in order for LDI and LIHC to be successful, students have to attend our events. If no one comes to listen to our speakers or participate in workshops, then we have failed in our
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mission to provide leadership training and development.
The Pitfalls of Traditional Publicity Getting people to show up to events has always been difficult. Students are busy with their schoolwork, extracurriculars, and other groups’ events. Historically, LIHC has tried to overcome these problems in the same way that other organizations do: send publicity emails out to student lists, put up posters, and have food at the events to try incentivize students to come. While the food does tend to keep those who do show up happy, the truth is that such publicity does not work. Part of the problem is that email is a broken tool. Mass emails are often automatically filtered by students’ Gmail accounts, so most students never see publicity emails, let
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alone read them. The large volume of emails students get in their .edu accounts means they tend to read only personal emails that were written directly to them. The problem with postering is that posters often do not stay up long, and they are often lost among the many similar posters that are up at any given time. There is also no way to tell whether people have noticed them until the night of the event, when no one shows up.
Targeted Publicity through Personal Social Networks LDI held an event in October of 2011 with US Air Force General Philip M. Breedlove. General Breedlove is the Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force, and he agreed to fly up to Cambridge from Washington DC just for our event. About 48 hours before the event, despite having sent mass emails to every
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PITFALLS OF POOR PUBLICITY
excited to attend. Since the experience with General Breedlove, LDI has shifted to a largely personal style of publicity. One way LDI has done this is by encouraging members to bring at least one friend with them to each event and to personally talk to at least five people about attending. One of the most successful applications of our new strategy was when Connor Mangan ’15 was tasked with finding rooms for 250 visiting students for the two-day Ivy Leadership Summit in February of 2012. Connor had roughly two weeks between the close of registration and the start of the Summit to find hosts for the visiting students. He made it happen by directly reaching out to his peers and encouraging all of LDI to reach out to at least five different people to host, in addition to sending mass publicity
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Part of the problem is that email in general is a broken tool.
emails to the undergraduate student body. “The only way this was possible was through meaningful conversations with people we already had relationships with. Because these people were our friends, they wanted to help,” Mangan said. More people know about our work since we have increased focus on building relationships within the undergraduate community. By directly talking to people, we have created and continue to build a network of people interested in leadership to ensure the success of LDI and LIHC events. This network is extremely valuable because we can tap into it as new events are scheduled and personally reach out to individuals who we think may be interested. Through a trial-and-error process, we have been driven to reexamine our perspective and develop a new underlying theory on leadership communication and networking. LDI and LHIC have re-defined their personal publicity styles much in the prescient nature envisioned by Jon Doochin. It would be beneficial for all student groups to try to employ a targeted style of publicity much like the one that we have started to utilize.
DANIELLE LUSSI PHOTO
mailing list at Harvard and postered extensively throughout Harvard’s dorms, only 14 people had RSVP’d through our publicity email – half of which were members of LDI. But within four hours, 50 more people had RSVP’d. This quick turnaround happened through leveraging personal social networks, which allowed for a targeted and successful publicity campaign. Instead of sending out more mass emails, we started sending personal emails to friends outside of the LIHC network. We also encouraged those who responded to do the same thing. We then started talking to everyone we could using Facebook chat to try and get people to commit to coming to the event. Finally, we spoke with individuals face-to-face about the event. These efforts were largely successful because they all established a direct line of communication. Whether through direct emails, Facebook chat, or face-to-face contact, it was easier to garner support for and increase interest in the event after talking to individual people. What had started as just another event lost among the masses suddenly turned into one that people were
SKILLS
Tunc Kiymaz ‘13 moderates the Leadership in Sports panel hosted by the Leadership Development Initiative with (left to right) men’s hockey coach Ted Donato, men’s lightweight crew coach Linda Muri, and women’s basketball coach Kathy DelaneySmith on April 10, 2012. LDI has switched to a more personal social networking plan to increase attendance.
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ADVICE FROM A LEADER
Meet the Mayor Kathy Taylor, the 38th mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma, shares her leadership experience with the Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine. by Franklin Lee
“So while I’m honored to be your mayor, I’ve decided not to run for re-election,” Kathy Taylor said in a commercial that aired while she was still mayor of Tulsa, Oklahoma. She made that unusual decision so she would have more time to devote to city projects. In fact, her single term from 2006 to 2009 was rife with such projects, including the construction of a multi-purpose arena and a new baseball park as well as the establishment of the Mayor’s Entrepreneurial Spirit Award to encourage innovators to launch their businesses in Tulsa. Taylor was also a fellow for the Institute of Politics’ Fellow and Study Group Program spring 2012, leading weekly off-the-record discussions on topics including public service with non-profits, opportunity for policy impact and case studies of successful healthcare reform. The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine spoke with Taylor during her time at Harvard about the lessons she hopes to pass on to young leaders. How did y Kathy Taylor: The only way to fulfill your goals, particularly in elected office, is with a dedicated team that has helped develop the plan and clearly understands it and communicates it to others. We had a broad team of city employees, private citizens, labor unions, faith leaders, philanthropists and students who helped us design solutions to problems and implement the solutions.
it integrated in the plan. While intense citizen engagement can take much time, the theory can be applied in any situation including turning around a company. People work to implement plans more intensely if they have had a voice. How KT: A great leader is an energetic person who has a passion to achieve something greater than his or her own success. A leader must be able to connect and inspire a team, and lead a vision to take advantage of opportunities and accept risks of failure. Leadership must be adaptive and reflective. One quality that KT: You absolutely need good time management or the projects that aren’t on your priority list will overcome you. Your “to-don’t list” is as important as your “to-do” list. You have to schedule your time through a lens of the goals you and your team want to accomplish. You must make time to mentor the great employees to achieve. Making time for your employees is one of the most important things you can do. They are the team that helps execute your goals. You also have to make time for fun, both with your employees and with your family and friends. The most effective leaders take time in their schedule for themselves and to be with people who are not the part of their intense work environment.
What
KT: I learned that community engagement [makes projects more] sustainable and effective. As we developed the first comprehensive land use plan in 30 years for our city, we had small group workshops in dozens of places and various times to engage citizens about their dreams for the future of their city. Thousands of citizens provided their input and saw
K AT H Y TAY L O R
PHOTO COURTESY
What
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her ? KT: If you see an issue that you believe can be tackled better, learn about it, meet those involved, and develop a coalition to make change. You will be surprised at how quickly and effectively you can make an impact. You will develop leadership skills and help make a positive impact on others.
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Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine The Harvard Undergraduate Leadership Magazine provides students with a broad array of perspectives on leadership, challenges them to reevaluate and empowers them to transform that acquired knowledge into a tangible, positive impact on the world.
External Relations The External Relations (ER) committee connects LIHC with the outside world mission. ER is engaged in fundraising, organizing internal leadership trainings for LIHC members, and developing partnerships with organizations at Harvard and beyond, One of these organizations is the Ivy Council, a consortium of student governments and distinguished student groups from all eight Ivy League universities.
The Presidents' Forum The Presidents' Forum (TPF) aims to promote collaboration and channels of communication between student leaders on campus. It facilitates executive leadership development by bringing together the presidents, editors, and captains of Harvard's student organizations and sports teams. TPF hosts intimate discussion forums on topics most relevant to presidents. Past themes include women's leadership, sports leadership, developing mentorship programs, and leadership in science.
Leadership Development Initiative The Leadership Development Initiative (LDI) works to equip Harvard students with the skills and principles necessary to practice leadership in the world. Through hands-on training as well as speeches and panels featuring some of society's most esteemed leaders, students are given opportunitites to learn about and prepare for future leadership roles. Training topics include: negotiation, public speaking, applied leadership forum, motivating a team, and more.
Social Outreach The Social Outreach (SO) committee aims to empower middle and high school students with values, skills, and accomplish positive change in their schools, communities, and the world. Members of Social Outreach teach a 10-week leadership curriculum, entitled "Youth Lead the Change" to sixth grade minority students in partnership with Citizen Schools.
LIHC Vision Students from Harvard University develop, practice, and promote leadership in their lives and the world.
LIHC Mission The Leadership Institute at Harvard College (LIHC) is a student-run organization that aims to build a movement to promote personal, professional and service leadership at Harvard and beyond. LIHC aims to inspire, empower, and enable students to exercise their leadership potential at Harvard, in their communities, and in our world.