No Advice
Posted on Oct 28, 2009
There is no shortage of advice and plenty of “no” advice. An excerpt of Michael Meyer’s book, The Year That Changed the World, appears in the November 2009 issue of Reader’s Digest and recounts the opposition President Ronald Reagan faced in June 1987. Mr. Reagan’s instincts, piqued through dealings with Mikhail Gorbachev and living through glasnost and perestroika, told him that including speechwriter Peter Robinson’s line, “…Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” in his Berlin speech was the right thing to do. The State Department, the National Security Council and the ranking American diplomat in Berlin all advised “no.”
The “no” roadblock comes in many forms. Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace flunked out of college. Walt Disney was fired for a lack of ideas. Einstein, Pasteur and Newton all did poorly in school and Winston Churchill failed 6th grade. Nathaniel Hawthorne was fired. Abraham Lincoln heard “no” from voters when he first ran for Illinois state representative, he heard “no” from colleagues when he ran for Speaker of the Illinois House of Representatives and he heard “no” again when he ran for U.S. Senate. When have your ideas been greeted with “no?”
The diplomatic advice given to Ronald Reagan was that he should alter his famous challenge to Mr. Gorbachev and say instead, “One day, this ugly wall will disappear.” Wow, that’d light a fire. President Reagan rejected the “no” advice and his challenge became an invitation from the western world to the communist block of nations to continue the historic progress already begun. Clearly, there are times when the most prudent advice is in fact, “no.” A mark of effective leadership is knowing when and how to galvanize through the sharing of new ideas. True leaders have an infectious ability to make others believe and achieve in ways they would not otherwise succeed. In Walt Disney’s words, “Somehow I can’t believe that there are any heights that can’t be scaled by a man who knows the secrets of making dreams come true. This special secret, it seems to me, can be summarized in four C s. They are curiosity, confidence, courage, and constancy, and the greatest of all is confidence. When you believe in a thing, believe in it all the way, implicitly and unquestionable.”
The new statue of President Ronald Reagan was unveiled in the United States Capitol rotunda earlier this month. Rimming the upper edge of that new statue’s pedestal are chips from the demolished Berlin Wall that symbolized the Cold War period of international relations! Remember those Berlin chips when you hear “no” advice.
