How to Change the World A Practical Guide
[Music]
thanks it’s uh
great to be here um i’ve had the
privilege of working with a lot of
very different leaders over the years
and
it struck me that a lot of the
lessons that i picked up from these very
different leaders are things that
we can all apply in our everyday lives
it also struck me that i’ve been to a
lot of different talks
by people on leadership and the lessons
are always
very very specific now i don’t know
about you but
i’m not running for president uh i don’t
run a fortune 500
company and i’m not planning to start
the next great revolution um
or i might be planning it but i’m
probably not doing it
there are things that we all want to
change in the world
in many different ways and they’re often
things we’re doing through our
businesses
uh through our communities in
just the lives of our families and our
friends and the people we care about
i think all those lessons on leadership
are still things we can apply there
so what i’ve worked to do is really just
to draw together a set of very common
simple practical things that we can all
apply and which
i think may be slightly
counter-intuitive than what you often
hear in those leadership talks
the first thing is we need to start by
thinking
what is our actual view of the world
what is the world that we want to change
and what is the change we’re truly
trying to create when i was at
university my
favorite professor was actually from
bucharest he was a professor of
international relations at university
college london
and he like most folks here
had very little time for nonsense
uh if you try to answer a question in
his international relations class and
you said
this policy is good because it creates
security
he would stare you down and he’d say
whose security
and for what purpose that was always
what he responded with and people would
always say oh this is great for security
or for peace or for freedom
and he’d always stab them out and say no
i don’t know what you’re talking about
you’re gonna have to define that
whose security and for what purpose and
i’m gonna ask that same question when
folks talk about changing the world
whose world
and for what purpose by the way i love
that the default icon for the world if
you look it up on google image search or
wherever you’re stealing
graphics for your slide presentation not
that i did that
all copyright free per ted regulations
the default icon always has a picture of
america
as that primary image on the globe and
that’s a perfect example actually
of are you asking whose world and for
what purpose
a lot of people would just say ah that’s
just a picture of the world doesn’t
really matter
they’re generally the american graphic
designers who stuck up that picture
uh onto getty or wherever you’re nicking
your images from
and that’s an example of how you need to
constantly question is this the thing
that will really resonate with everyone
else another
image continuing with the cartographical
theme
is this picture of the the world now
this is this is a
map of the world that you’re probably
all incredibly familiar with
now this is what is known as a maketa
map projection
it was created by a flemish cartographer
gerardus maketa
in 1569. this is the standard
map of the world that you’ll find in
most classrooms most boardrooms around
the world
and it was designed for sailors in
europe at the time
and it does something quite complicated
it turns a 3d globe into a rectangular
image of the world which it turns out is
actually really hard to do in a way that
doesn’t distort
the image entirely and makita tried to
do the best
for the purposes that he was creating
that map for and he created a map that
accurately presents the shape of the
countries and the territories on this
but it completely distorts the size of
those images
especially as you get further away from
the equator here’s another
entirely different view of the world
that’s the peter’s projection that was
created by a german
academic arno peters uh back in the
1970s
and this one takes a completely
different approach recognizing
that if you i’ll just go back to that
previous slide if you
look at that mercator image look how
massive greenland looks for example it
looks like it takes up like half the
world there’s greenland all over again
it turns out that in reality greenland
is actually roughly the size of mexico
and
what the peter’s projection does is it
accurately presents the size of
different parts of that world
relative to each other there are things
that are
not entirely accurate about it because
it turns out with any map when you’re
projecting that 3d globe onto a
rectangular image
there are challenges but it’s something
that is slightly more
representative of the actual world that
we all
live in i think all of us
need to be asking that same question of
ourselves
as we think about the change that we’re
trying to create are we looking
at the world as it actually is or are we
using a completely distorted
image of the things that we really want
to create
and it’s just inevitable that all of us
as the product of the environments we
grew up in uh
end up thinking that the way things are
in our lives is something that is much
more representative than it really is
if you want to create real valuable
change for a lot of people though
you have to look beyond those
perspectives and you have to think about
the world
as it actually is and i’ll give you a
very practical example of what it means
when you don’t do that
you end up creating apps and services or
inventions or
hypothesizing about inventions which you
think are a much bigger deal when they
really are
is blockchain really the biggest thing
ever are self-driving cars really the
most exciting thing
in the world or is it the fact that more
than half the world goes to bed hungry
every single night is it the fact that
billions of people around the world
still don’t have access to things like
electricity or clean running water
there’s a completely different world out
there and before we go and change it we
have to know what it actually
looks like my next lesson
is around what i call the paperclip game
and this is something that i first
started thinking about
years ago when a amazing canadian
blogger kyle
mcdonald managed to trade a single paper
clip
for a house he took a paper clip
and he posted online on a forum he said
i really want to try and get all the way
to a house so i’ll trade you this paper
clip for something slightly bigger
can someone help me out on this so he
went and swapped his paper clip for i
think it was a pen
and he kept trading up at some point
somebody offered him
uh a recording contract in the music
studio he swapped that he ended up
getting a part in a tv show
he swapped that he ended up owning a
farm
so when i think about creating change
a lot of the time we go straight to the
biggest things we want to do
you want to end war you want to stop
climate change and build a
net zero carbon economy you want to
bring peace
to the country or to the world those are
all perfectly
laudable and fantastic goals to have but
they’re massive
they’re impossible to achieve on their
own and
yeah you’ll absolutely inspire people to
come and be part of that journey with
you
but the first thing that will happen is
they say well what actually comes next
to have any valuable change to go on any
valuable journey you need to break it
down
you need to start with the paper clip
and yes you can aim for those big things
you can one day get
to those massive massive goals and
outcomes but you will probably
have a lot of trading to do before you
get there and if you start with that
paper clip you’ll be on a very very
practical journey and by the way that’s
exactly how it is
at massive companies and services like
facebook and google
every day they’re working to connect the
world but really what that means is
they’re focused on very small
incremental
completely unglamorous things on a daily
basis you might be optimizing an
algorithm by one or two percent
you might be trying to make a few people
a little bit happier
in the way they use a certain product
all those things together
create that massive change
you also need to start by thinking what
is the actual
change that i want to create not what
everyone else wants you to do
and this is a picture of henry ford
henry ford had this famous saying he
said if i’d asked my customers
what they would have wanted they would
have asked for a faster horse
he went and built this instead this is
the ford quadricycle in the 1890s this
was his motor car which started off the
ford
empire and it’s because he believed
in that it was something that he was
passionate about something he invented
how many people in the world are
looking to create a change but are
really trying to invent faster horses
the number of times i go and meet
entrepreneurs and change makers and they
say
i really want to create a business dex
how do i go about coming up with an idea
for my business
and that’s completely the wrong approach
you want to start by saying
this is the thing i actually want to do
in the world this is the problem
i’m trying to solve for people this is
the value i’m trying to create
and that might be something which
becomes a very valuable business in fact
that’s how valuable businesses get
started by having that idea by having
that problem you’re trying to solve
but if you simply go around asking
people what’s the way i can make you
happy
they’re probably going to give you an
answer that’s completely rooted in stuff
that’s already been done before because
the future hasn’t been invented yet
start by choosing the things that you
really want to do in understanding what
is the real problem
that you’re trying to solve
if you want to create change you also
need to think
about who’s going to create change with
you
there’s this uh famous saying if you
want to go fast
go alone and if you want to go far you
go together
and this is a picture uh which one of my
friends took at an event that i
organized in san francisco
a couple of years ago this was a a large
rally
just after donald trump had been
inaugurated as the president
and this was a rally in solidarity with
refugees and immigrants
now in 2016 after the election
i left my job working for elon musk
very soon after the election and i had
this moment of epiphany
it was a couple of days after the
election and i was walking
inside the rocket factory in los angeles
and i was waiting for a journalist
i was supposed to take them around to
look at the different rockets
and i realized that i wouldn’t be able
to keep doing this job with a straight
face
in the next year because every day i
went to work and i thought about how to
tell a story
about humanity’s far-flung future a
future on other worlds and how to make
an interplanetary
species possible and how is it possible
to go and do that
when our future is under attack right
now
when a common humanity in solidarity is
being attacked by political leaders in
the world
so i went and i instead spent the next
year and a half focused on social change
projects
and naturally when i went and did that i
had absolutely no idea what i was doing
the world is huge these problems are
massive i’m trying to work my way
through them
and i ended up posting on facebook
asking if there was anybody who wanted
to help me with this
within just the space of a few days
hundreds of people
had said yeah i’d like to be involved
and this rally
in san francisco which had about 10 000
people on the streets
that was organized in six days with four
strangers who i’d never met before
who were all students and that for me
was an incredibly powerful example of
you can try and think your way through a
problem all on your own
or you can ask for help and go together
with people
and that’s when things get really really
interesting there are so many people
trying to create change who think
they’re the
heroic solitary inventor or genius or
revolutionary
in their office or their garage or late
at night working by the light of a lamp
and that’s all really romantic and
fantastic but that’s not
actually how change genuinely takes
place every invention
is created by a lot of different mothers
and fathers
you also need to think about
communications as something completely
integrated
with what you’re trying to create in the
world there are so many times
folks tell me ah this invention it
speaks for itself
the product speaks for itself i don’t
need some fancy spin doctor or pr
guy to go and tell my story i’m busy
working on creating the next great thing
and that’s completely fantastic except
communications
absolutely is something that will depend
uh on whether your product will go out
and succeed in the world you can’t just
create something and assume that
everyone just
gets it and there are so many examples
throughout history of folks who have not
succeeded at that
tesla one of the most famous inventors
in history
the serbian american inventor
popularized celebrated
his name behind one of elon’s companies
today the reason why tesla is a hero in
silicon valley and why his name is on
that company
is because he was a guy who was a
brilliant inventor but terrible at
communications
and silicon mallee uses him as an
instructive story today
of what happens when you’re a brilliant
mind but you don’t know how to sell your
product to the public or translate it
into value that people understand
and that’s why tesla ended up actually
die in relative obscurity
and poverty while other folks like
thomas edison
who were fantastically successful and
celebrated as inventing things
even when they weren’t just as great
minds
and the way i think about communications
for
change in the world is you want to have
a revolutionary component to it
revolutionaries are folks who are
entirely about communications they
recognize that political change isn’t
just the process in the back room
working with elites and working with
processes and systems
it’s something that depends on a message
and that message is something that has
to be transformative
it’s something that has to be inevitable
it’s something that you feel is going to
happen anyway you’re just speeding
things up
it has to be something that’s believable
you’re not just saying i’m going to
change the world you’re actually doing
something people will
trust you can actually achieve and it’s
got to be simple enough
that people will actually be able to
understand you rather than just talking
in scientific jargon
so think about communications as part of
that process of change
don’t just think this is the job for
some pr person later on
you want to be able to communicate your
inventions from the very start to a lot
of different people
on data this is a poster that adorns the
walls of many silicon valley companies
data
wins arguments it’s a powerful mantra in
silicon valley
it is completely wrong i have had so
many arguments with colleagues and
friends over the years
about the validity of this statement
data doesn’t win arguments
it turns out that humans win arguments
and yeah
humans should use more data when you
have a conversation sometimes they’re
entirely fact free
you want to have some data to go behind
that but humans ultimately are emotional
creatures
we’re not fully rational all the time we
choose things that are ridiculous on a
frequent basis
data is a human invention and it is
subject to the same flaws and biases
as all humans and that’s why there’s
plenty of examples
in the valley and throughout industry of
when data makes people make really bad
decisions
there was a metric used for a long time
in silicon valley about
time spent on apps and services the more
time you spent on an app
the more successful it was supposed to
be well actually it turns out that if
people just spend a lot of time
on their phones or in their apps they
might feel terrible afterwards
and actually the way people feel about a
service the sentiment
actually turns out to be a much more
valuable indicator of
is that product actually performing well
and creating
value in our lives um plenty of other
examples of
facial recognition systems which don’t
recognize people from certain
ethnic groups uh voice recognition
systems like uh
on certain assistants like alexa where
it turns out you have to put on your
best fake american accent to make them
work
that’s what happens when you just rely
on the flawless power of data
don’t do that put it in the human
context recognize the ethical
and social framework in which decisions
should be made
data is really really powerful but it
won’t solve all your problems on its own
great leaders know when to quit it’s
important to know when to show up
it’s important to know when to dig in
but it’s also important to know
when to surrender and when it’s time to
get off the stage which i’ll be doing in
just a couple of minutes according to
this club
there are so many great leaders i’ve met
throughout my life
who feel that they have to suffer for
what they believe in i don’t really like
my job i don’t really like my
organization
i have to keep doing it because everyone
will make fun of me and i’ll be
embarrassed horribly if i quit
they’ll all judge me trust me nobody is
doing that because everyone else is
worrying about everyone else judging
them
much more valuable is to think i can
create as much change as possible here
but when it’s time to go i’ll take that
change and create it somewhere else
every moment that you spend wasting it
on things that aren’t truly valuable and
making use of your talents
that is a time you are taking away from
the real thing that you could be doing
so know when it’s time to go and do that
real leaders don’t try to divide people
to succeed
this is a image from war of the worlds
h.g wells science fiction story from the
1800s
he wrote about a war between uh aliens
and earth because he thought that
if there was an alien invasion humanity
would unite
and we’d all suddenly enter a new realm
of peace and prosperity because we would
be
working together against that well
actually that didn’t happen
and lots of leaders still keep trying to
get that alien invasion moment
they try to divide us against different
people in order to
motivate people it is an incredibly
unproductive method because it turns out
people
don’t always like to be at war and to be
in endless conflict with each other
much better is to unite people and find
ways to bring us together
rather than just manufacturing enemies
wrapping up now this is a photo taken in
a bar in san francisco it’s a model of a
clock that’s being built in the texas
desert
by an organization called the long now
foundation this is a clock called the
ten thousand year clock it’s designed to
tick once
every century uh the cuckoo and the
clock only sounds once every millennium
it’s designed to make people think about
the future because it turns out the
future lasts forever
you may think that sounds ridiculous but
for most of us it doesn’t
companies are driven by really
short-term incentives the future
might just last a quarter if you’re a
business executive
if you’re a politician it lasts as long
as you need before you need to run for
re-election
and all of us we might just need to get
through our day social media influences
the future lasts as long as your next
instagram post is getting likes we need
to think
about the long-term consequence of what
we want to create not just the here and
now
and that’s really really important and
hard to do in today’s world
and lastly changing the world is not
just about going out there and changing
everything everyone else is doing you’ve
got to start with yourself
and the number one thing i’ve learned
from every leader i’ve worked with is
that most people
aren’t good at doing most things most of
the time
and the best leaders know that we’re all
pretty terrible at most things we can’t
be good at everything you could be
really good at a narrow range of things
but you need to ask for help and that’s
why you always need to be working to
improve yourself
so before you go out and change the
world start by thinking what do i need
to change in my own life
and you will be that much more effective
and you really will go and change the
world
thank you