5 Tips for Assuming a Leadership Position from David Zaslav

1. Get on board and lead.
2. In the toughest times be positive and optimistic.
3. People still want to learn and be inspired.
4. It pays to set a high standard, be patient and do things differently.
5. Take a job that you love.

The Speechmaker: How Bill Gates Got Ready for Harvard

In one of the issues of the Wall St. Journal last week there was an article about how Bill Gates prepared for his harvard's commencement speech. He started the process six months prior to the event. He read Nobel Prize acceptance speeches of Albert Einstein, Marie Curie, Enrico Fermi abd bacteriologist Robert Koch, among others. He also studied Harvard commencement speeches of Bill Clinton and Bono.

Then he saw the framed copy of George Marshall Harvard's speech at the State Deptartment. It was about how "enormous complexity" of problems facing postwar Europe makes it "exceedingly difficult for the man in the street to reach a clear appraisement of the situation."

The word complexity struck him because he had been talking to the billionaire investor Mr. Warren Buffet about how the complexity of certain things in society hinders people from fully understanding them, and ultimately impedes growth.In his analytical style which he became famous in high-tech circles, he recommended a four-point plan for attacking a complex problem:
* determine a goal,
* find the "highest-leverage approach,"
* discover the ideal technology for that approach,"
* and in the meantime, make the smartest application of the technology that you already have."

He used "The AIDS epidemic" in citing each of the points.He exhorted that each graduates to take on an issue and "become a specialist on it" even if they devote just a few hours everyweek.

Thanks Mr. Gates.