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The panel that should’ve been a keynote

Let’s dive in…

We’ve been heads down these last several weeks designing and facilitating conferences. But out of all of our years attending and participating in conferences, I don’t think I’ve seen a panelist like this, who, quite frankly, should’ve been programmed as a keynote speaker. It’s not that the other panelists were not good or interesting, it’s more of a fact that former South African Ambassador to the United States, Ebrahim Rasool, practically preached a sermon every time he spoke. The depth of his experience was completely unmatched.

How did the program director get the other panelists to agree to join the panel?

Program Director: We’d love to have you on the panel along with the Ambassador and former colleague of Nelson Mandela.

Panelist: Yes, please. It doesn’t sound like he’d upstage me at all.

While laughing hysterically at the moderator who consistently, but playfully, instructed the other panelists to answer questions first, because once Ambassador Rahul spoke there was no way you could follow it, I felt bad for the other panelists, but also just kept wondering: Why didn’t they just have this man do a keynote?

We’ve edited the talk from a 1.5-hour panel and Q&A session to a 11-minute fireside chat with the Ambassador, the moderator, and the audience. He discusses leadership in a way that is very holistic, reflective of the past, but prescriptive for the future. 

As we all know, leaders have to make tough decisions every day, and now, even more so given the state of the world. But how do you consistently stay on top of your game in the middle of a crisis? How do you lead with your values when your livelihood is at stake?

To my conference speakers, I am very curious – how would you have responded if you were asked to be on this panel?

Enjoy!

💚 Amy & Bryan

P.S. We’re following the fallout at WebSummit. Paddy Cosgrave is now the former CEO of WebSummit after being forced out by all of the BigTech pullouts from the event over his comments regarding the war. That said, the event is still going to happen, “over 300 tech companies will be there and host over 70,000 attendees with a full program”. 

Zoom out: Skoll World Forum

Jeff Skoll, created the Skoll Foundation to build a sustainable world of peace and prosperity for all. The Canadian was the first full-time employee and first President of EBAY. He led it to its IPO. In addition to a media company (Participant) and investment group (Capricorn Investment Group), Jeff created the Skoll World Forum. 

Skoll World Forum gathers annually drawing delegates from over 100 countries with over 100 speakers annually since 2004. The 3-day convenings are purposed to collaborate on and accelerate innovative solutions to the world’s most pressing problems. This year, the Forum celebrated its 20th event and took place on April 12-14 in Oxford, UK.

2024’s Forum will return to Oxford, UK, and take place April 9-12th. Attendance is based on the acceptance and approval of your application. The December 15th deadline to apply is rapidly approaching. You can apply here.

Zoom in: Shaping the Future Bold Visions of Leadership with Ebrahim Rasool

Ebrahim Rasool has a resume that is extensive, freedom-focused, and founded on humanity and coexistence. He is the former South African Ambassador to the United States and former Governor of Western Cape. He was jailed and worked alongside Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and F. W. de Klerk. He founded the World for All Foundation which is especially active among Muslim minority communities, transferring examples of coexistence from South Africa, and increasingly acts as a conduit for Nelson Mandela's lesson.

Yes, there were 4 other people on this panel with Ambassador Rasool, whose perspectives and experiences I don’t discount, and am frankly grateful for the work they do. But, we’re only sharing the questions and summary of the Ambassador’s responses and even edited our recap video to create the panel-turned-keynote you didn’t know you needed.

His talk will help you…

1. Consider how you can apply lessons and pillars from some of the world’s greatest leaders to your leadership style.

2. Understand the importance of counter-instinctive leadership and how to apply it.

3. Replenish yourself when you’re leading through rough times and circumstances.

Leading When Your Life Is On The Line

What kind of lessons can we learn from Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and F. W. de Klerk’s leadership?

While the three heroes that I worked with, were time-bound, their lessons are eternal in time, universal in space, and adaptable to circumstance.” Here are the lessons.

Heroism: 

“Bertolt Brecht, in his play Galileo, uses a memorable phrase when he says, “Unhappy is the land that needs a hero.” The need to rise to the occasion often occurs when a country or a society is deeply unhappy.

I've had the privilege of working with three of the four Nobel Peace Prize winners in South Africa, and all of them put together a texture of leadership that spoke to the deep unhappiness of apartheid South Africa. And therefore, when you are in an unhappy situation, it is not a call for despair. It is a call for heroism. It is a call to rise to the occasion.”

Values-aligned Action: 

“We should be so privileged that when confronted with deep unhappiness like Nelson Mandela was, you joyfully go to prison for 27 years. When you are faced with unhappiness, like what Desmond Tutu was faced with, you place yourself between an angry mob and a white policeman and save his life, because your values say, this is what's worthwhile. And when you are faced with a deep unhappiness like what F. W. De Klerk was faced with. You go out to persuade a white community to relinquish power. And so, it's not the populism that we see parading around the world, the mainstream extremism, as I call it, but what we need is popular politics in which you take an unpopular position and you persuade communities about its rightness and then get them to act in concert with it.”

Humanity: 

“Those three leaders were all governed by an African philosophy called Ubuntu. I am because you are. It is the recognition of the humanity in the other that propels you to protect your own humanity and the humanity of your people but also makes you conscious that you take the humanity of your enemy in your own hand because you've got to salvage that humanity for them as well if the future is going to be one of cooperation, coexistence and working together, and that is out of which was born the process of reconciliation in South Africa and the process of building a new country and a new society founded on the most enduring values.”

Instinctive vs. Counter Instinctive: 

“Another African saying that we have is your anger is hot, but it cannot cook. So much of what activism is premised on that sends us down rabbit holes, is the belief that anger is legitimate. In South Africa, the struggle is to direct your anger, to give it a purpose, and to make it cook. If you have the anger, that you speak with righteousness, that you label with abandon, that you condemn even your enemies to death, it's all an expression of real problems that you're having, real grievances that we're having, but it does not cook. It does not take you from the devastation where you are to the promise of where you want to be.

And so, the counter-instinctive is how to manage your anger. And that's why Nelson Mandela could come out of prison, and he was asked, “Are you not bitter? Are you not angry at the people who jailed you for 27 years?” And he replied, “If I were to be angry, I would carry them around and they would continue to imprison me forever.” Anger is imprisonment.

To overcome your anger and to move forward is counter-instinctive in the same way that popular is counter-instinctive to populist. It is better to speak into the anger of people and direct that anger to whoever you want to direct it to.

Lastly, counter-instinctive is what we learn from Mozambique and Angola, Rhodesia, and all of those colonial states around us that their colonialists had somewhere else to go. The Portuguese to Portugal, the Brits to Britain, et cetera. Our colonialists had nowhere else to go. They had to stay. We had to face them the day after liberation. How do you want to face them? With perpetual anger? Or with coexistence? And if you choose coexistence, you choose reconciliation. And if you choose reconciliation, you make the rules that will make reconciliation sustainable and equitable into the future.”

I can't imagine being in prison for 27 years and coming out joyful and willing to not just work with but coexist with my captors. So how do you practice that every day?

“ By always pushing to the front of your mind what often wants to go to the back of your mind, and that is your purpose. It is about purposeful leadership.

What Nelson Mandela did in challenging the judge is not the song of the fundamentalist or the extremist who wants to die for the cause because they don't vow to live for the cause. Nelson Mandela says this is the cause for which I want to live. I want to achieve it. But it is so worthwhile, that if necessary, I will die for it. Each one of us has to find that purpose that is so worthwhile to die for that we now know what to live for. And that is purposeful leadership.

Keep the big picture all the time in your head: A nonracial, nonsexist, democratic, and free society. If that’s what I want, then I have to live for it and never live in contradiction of it. Because moral ends don't justify immoral means. You can't want to be a nonracial and mobilize race. You can't want a peaceful society and spawn wanton violence.

You can't want to have inclusivity but demonize the other, even your enemy. You've always got to redeem souls on earth, and that is the way in which Nelson Mandela acted his leadership every day and was purposeful in his leadership.”

I'm curious because you've been in the work for so long. What keeps you in it?

“ Staying in touch with your own humanity replenishes you. Some people thrive on being workaholics. But there's no merit in workaholism. It's like any other addiction. It diminishes you.

So you've got to plan for joy in your life. You've got to plan for your regeneration. You must also begin to phase your life so that you can pace yourself and not burn out.

In government, you learn how dispensable you are. Tomorrow, everyone can vote for you and make you the governor and love you. The moment you leave the office, you know that they were only in love with your title, and you should never have enslaved yourself to the title so much so that you now don't know how to get into a car without opening the door yourself. And that's a lesson that I learned very early in life – it's to retain who I am.

Archbishop Tutu taught us never to take ourselves too seriously. Yes, we are busy with serious stuff. But you are also a cog in the bigger picture. Don't take yourself so seriously that you believe this organization will fall if you’re not there. The organization will go on. And you will be disappointed that it goes on without you.”

What questions are you asking yourself right now?

“ I've spoken about the great history of South Africa, but we have a very bad present. The question that I ask myself is, what do people like myself do to salvage the legacy of noble people against those who trade the organization and the legacy of Nelson Mandela for corruption?

And so my question is, how much energy do I have? Every day that I don't do something, I feel unworthy. But I also know that it is not a fight I can do alone. We have to mobilize the bigger society. This requires resources beyond myself. So I ask: can I embrace my limitations?”

Hey, let’s work together. 👋

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