Ranjay Gulati

We respond to the social cues in our context.

We are individual creatures too, but we, as much as we don't want to believe it, especially in America, we don't want to believe we are in any way socially influenced.

We believe we're hyper individualists.

Context matters.

And I think what I would say is that as we look at context, even in a family, we have a context.

As a family, the parents create a context in which behavior is manifest, what's acceptable, what's not.

We role model it.

We penalize some things and we recognize some things.

So how do we create a context in which courage is not only recognized, but cherished and encouraged?

And learning to be bold is something that we not only tolerate, but we actually support.

And I tell you what context matters, like one of the companies I wrote a case study on, the leader, when he was going to change the organization, he said, somebody gave him advice and said, you can't turn sheep into wolves.

So he said, what do you mean?

He said, the advisor said, cull the sheep and hire some wolves.

And he disagreed with it vigorously.

And he said, I'm going to teach sheep to be wolves.

And he led this most incredible turnaround.

without laying off a single person.

The same organization, the bottom rated bank in Singapore, nicknamed from DBS, it was called damn bloody slow.

It was the worst rated bank to the number one bank in the world in 10 years.

And he said, without laying off anybody.