The Most Important Letter Abraham Lincoln Never Sent | Nancy Koehn | Big Think
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- čas přidán 12. 10. 2017
- The Most Important Letter Abraham Lincoln Never Sent
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Want to be one of the greatest leaders of all time, with a wealth of success, power and respect? Try doing nothing for a change, says Harvard historian Nancy Koehn. This counterintuitive advice applies to moments of crisis, when the stakes are high and emotions are tense, because that is the very time when you're apt to make errors in your decision-making. Anger brings weakness, but you can conquer the trap of emotion by removing yourself from the situation, and sitting in silence to think. To prove that doing nothing in times of severe anger is a leadership skill worth developing, Koehn tells the story of the most important letter Abraham Lincoln never sent-if he had had email or twitter (i.e. quick reactions) back in 1863, the outcome of the Civil War and U.S. history may have been drastically different. It turns out you can win almost any fight if you learn how to respond thoughtfully in time, instead of reacting rashly in an instant. Nancy Koehn is the author of Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times.
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NANCY KOEHN:
Nancy Koehn is a historian at the Harvard Business School where she holds the James E. Robison chair of Business Administration. Koehn's research focuses on how leaders, past and present, craft lives of purpose, worth, and impact.
Her new book, Forged in Crisis: The Power of Courageous Leadership in Turbulent Times is an enthralling historical narrative filled with critical leadership insights that will be of interest to a wide range of readers-including those in government, business, education, and the arts-Forged in Crisis spotlights five masters of crisis: polar explorer Ernest Shackleton; President Abraham Lincoln; legendary abolitionist Frederick Douglass; Nazi-resisting clergyman Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and environmental crusader Rachel Carson.
Koehn is the author of numerous books, articles, and Harvard Business School cases. She writes frequently for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Harvard Business Review Online. She is also a weekly commentator on National Public Radio and has appeared on many national television programs. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the Aspen Ideas Festival, and in many other venues.
A Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University, Koehn earned a Master of Public Policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government before taking her MA and PhD in History from Harvard. She lives outside Boston and is a dedicated equestrian.
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TRANSCRIPT:
Nancy Koehn: One of the most interesting and powerful lessons that I discovered in writing this book was that each of these five people - that’s Ernest Shackleton the Antarctic explorer; our sixteenth president Abraham Lincoln; the abolitionist and civil liberties crusader Frederick Douglass; the resistor to Nazi Germany’s evils Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor; and the environmental activist Rachel Carson, discover that sometimes doing nothing is the most powerful, the most significant, the most influential thing a leader can do.
And they discover that mostly by making mistakes, by acting quickly, decisively, rashly in a high stakes moment when they are highly charged, when they are emotionally very hot in terms of their temperature, and when people around them are emotionally very hot in terms of their emotional temperatures. They discover the power of waiting, of doing nothing when the stakes are high and emotional temperatures are high. And they discover this lesson because they make the mistake of acting, of writing, of speaking out, of making a decision when they are very, very hot under the collar, right? When their hair on the back of their neck is really on end. And they realize, “This is not my best mode. This is not my strongest self. I can actually do a lot of damage to my mission, my followers, what I’m trying to accomplish if I make choices when I don’t see myself as clearly, when I’m not as temperate and careful and thoughtful and reflective and emotionally aware as I might be.”
And so one of the best examples of this is an example that occurred right after the Battle of Gettysburg. And I tell it in the conclusion to the book. Abraham Lincoln has just learned that the Union Army, commanded by a general named George Meade, has won a decisive battle in three days of bloody fighting in southern Pennsylvania in Gettysburg against Robert ...
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This is an incredible lesson. It's not just about politics. The greatest thing you'll ever learn in your interpersonal life is to sit with your emotions without speaking or doing. Your brain--no matter how rational you are--takes time to work. When it comes to computing an ethical and logical solution that will make you and your friends/lovers/coworkers happy by the greatest degree, it has to run cycles. It has to compute. It has to go through all the decisions and weigh them.
Unfortunately, we're not really designed to work that way. Sadness and fear and anger demand instant gratification and quick solutions. They put us into states of pain and depression and if we don't act early, our emotions worsen. It takes a great deal of patience and intellect to give yourself the space you need when you need it.
frogboy7000 Very well spoken. I find that to be the case consistently in my life.
Well said!
This anecdote was told by Dale Carnegie in his 1936 book "How to Win Friends and Influence People."
Such a good read!
Mentz I agree. Lots of good lessons and stories to learn from in that book. Probably one of the most important books I've ever read.
Lincoln would be pretty different if he had access to Twitter.
The most important letter I ever wrote was to my first girlfriend. I'm still waiting to give her it when I get a girlfriend.
Bwahahhaah. Laughed hard at that.
A wonderful moral lesson about the hazards of haste, which email and instant messaging promote. I teach at a university. Now and then I get an angry email from a student, written in haste and dispatched immediately. I always write the following in reply: "I've received your email. Please do me a favor. Read it again, and then send me a follow-up email tomorrow, at which time I'll reply in detail." Invariably, the second email, written with a good dose of forethought, is reasonable, focused, and even apologetic.
Great story, thank you. The world could use lot more of Lincoln's wisdom right now.
I agree! Lincoln was perhaps my favorite leader to write about for Forged in Crisis.
Read this story long time ago, feeling nothing more than a small moral story.
Today I am older and know a lot more about life, I am very glad I saw this story again, it's so helpful and meaningful to today's me.
Thanks!
Fantastic. This is an incredibly pertinent message in today's age where communication is made so easy, yet it is never taught.
Beautiful and captivating recount of the event. Thank you!
Sometimes doing nothing can be the hardest thing to do, but the best.
Interesting that she called Sherman a great general, considering his controversial scorched earth campaign. Great message, though.
David Sue Sherman was a great General . He gave the South hell , and it was well deserved .
"emotional temperature" is a term used by a lot of "business historians", its a key concept of that hallowed and well established field of study.
Honestly? Best Big Think video in months.
Thank you! I think you'd enjoy the Shackleton story, as well!
A leader has to be cool headed. Period.
Isn't this the same story in that dale Carnegie book. Lol.
He probably told someone to send it but they were against him so they didnt.
Good, timely advice. Ye-old literate world did provide the luxury of being able to detach from emotion, even when killing with a rifle in battle. Our modern media teaching machines erode this capacity for detachment. So I'm thinking it must be part of a more persistent strategy or personality, in order to substitute reflection for a more instinctual and spontaneous reaction.
"Perambulating walk"? "Twitter message"? I agree with her though.
If you take action for every silly remark that people throw at you, you will end up burning up pretty quickly... Even if you win the argument, 10seconds later another one will come and you'll have to start all over again. Learning not to act beligerint is the hardest but one of the most beneficial thing you will learn to do in life... specially here on the internet.
Never would have picked out Lincoln as a closet shitposter.
Tell this to my previous boss.
Dale Carnegie tells this story better..
every thing is different later, if you things were done differently
what the hell was abes moment for doing nothing?, I would like to know. What was fredrick douglas moment I would like to know... cant say something like that without giving an example Think big.. you need to Think period.
Business historian -- quite the appellation! We can learn a great deal from those for whom history is a storehouse of ideas.
Nice nice :)
Hm
I can agree to "don't act on emotions" but not to the shit your peddling about world leaders unless you're talking about the media. Unfortunately what Lincoln did does not apply today, or in any current context.
Skip to around the 2 minute mark. Takes way too long to get to the point.
utubepunk well that's just like your opinion man
E L You're not wrong.
This is speculation, no?
Lesson 1. Shut up and chill before talking or acting.
theres aa lot to be said about waiting.but that doesnt change the fact that lincoln killed millions..instead of letting the south secede and everyone growing together in peace
Cough Trump, cough cough Trump.
Tesla said if you figure out the Marvel's of 9,6,3 you can figure out the secrets to the universe. 9 governs all and 6and3 always osalating. Sound familiar? God Governs All the son and Holy ghost always osalating
Cool story brah. How about you put more care into the problems that we have now and care less about something that happend over 100 years ago.
Point successfully missed. congrats.
There was a point? All i saw was her being logical. I have a good sense of logic this video taught me nothing.
Pixel Fyxe
Know about the past acknowledge it and period. Dont dwell to long on it.
Many important lessons require dwelling as they are not immediately obvious. Also, maybe your hasty initial comment made the whole point of the video.
Do you write this remark at every moral monologue about history on youtube? Then you have a lot of complete useless remarks to write.
So trump is right? Because that's basically what he's doing and he's getting a lot of flak for it.
I understand sometimes nothing is better than poorly made work, but I'd hardly say it's ideal.