Looking for a mechanic and a lawyer for our podcast episode on the NZ auto industry #newzealand #car #foryou #help #reviews

We often treat empathy in business as a "soft skill", a virtue we aspire to because we want to be seen as "good" leaders. But in leadership, treating empathy as a mere nicety is a strategic error. True innovation, the kind that lasts for generations, requires more than just a good idea or brute force (outside of pure luck!). It requires empathy. Empathy is a skill that helps you make better decisions. It validates if your "game-changing" idea is actually useful, or just an expensive vanity project. Whether you’re solving a huge problem for people, or creating something incredible for the sake of it, it’s often something for people. This includes yourself! How could you possibly know if you’re on track without zooming out and considering perspectives of the people you’re trying to serve? Empathy here acts as the root source of data that helps you inspire, guide, and validate people-problems. Additionally, my experience with leaders at all levels in public office, corporations, NGOs and even royalty have led me to a fundamental conclusion: almost all business problems and all sustainability problems are people problems. Even the most powerful people on the planet are not immune to incompetence, poor communication, poor teamwork and bad intentions. Collectively, we have the technology, the financing, the authority and almost everything you can imagine to do incredible things today, but what blocks us, is each other. Without empathy, you’ll be stuck with the biggest roadblocks humanity has ever faced, other humans! On that note, simply "being empathetic" isn't enough. Most of us confuse empathy with kindness, and that confusion creates two specific risks that can destroy both ventures and visions: waste and manipulation. Before we start master planning your legacy, we need to clear this poor definition in two parts: 1. Empathy without kindness 2. Kindness without empathy 1.Kindness Without Empathy When empathy and values (like kindness) are decoupled, they become dangerous to leadership and the people you influence.

Somehow these videos on bureaucratic sludge and ruthless efficiency ended up about the War on Drugs?! 😅

Should the private sector really be running our essential services? When a tech company cuts costs, you (might) get a cheaper phone. But when a power company cuts costs, you get blackouts. It shouldn't be a surprise that unrestricted capitalism hurts everyone, even shareholders in the medium term! We didn't even need to cover the healthcare mess in the US to drive the point in this video. Now - if you're wondering why at 51% ownership, the NZ government have allowed for price spikes and blackouts to occur in a cost-of-living crisis, you'll have to go right back to the inception of these agreements in the 2010s Mixed Ownership model. The mandate was explicit: Run like a commercial entity. That's exactly how they were designed, so why are we surprised they paid shareholders instead of investing in the nation's power generation and storage? Capitalism has been phenomenal for lifting large swathes of people out of poverty, but we can't treat it like a swiss-army knife for good governance.