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CHRIS MARSHALL: Can I have your attention, just for one moment, please? My notes say I'm supposed to say good morning, but we're running seven minutes behind, so good afternoon. Nah, still good morning.
Welcome, everyone. My name is Chris Marshall. I'm the Associate Vice President for Alumni Affairs. We are so excited you're all here. It is my job--
[APPLAUSE]
Yeah. This is exciting. Bu please keep eating. We're going to work right through the program. And in about 20 or 25 minutes or so, we'll have Sam come up and begin his talk. So a couple of quick things. As of last night, the number I had was 818 alumni joining us here in DC.
[APPLAUSE]
We had a busy morning of board meetings, committee meetings, lots of other work going on. And I think a great way to kick off the weekend is to have a phenomenal talk from one of our star-- our rock star faculty, as we call him. Sam Bacharach will be here in about 20 minutes to talk you through his speech.
A couple of questions to think about over the course of your meal. Just ponder this before Sam goes. How many people think their boss does a great job with leadership? I do, because he's sitting right there.
[LAUGHING]
And Charlie had to raise his hand, because his boss is watching somewhere. David's ever present. How many people, they think they do a great job with leadership? Interesting question to think about. How many people could do a better job with the people they manage? I know my staff want to see my hand go up. That's for sure.
So one of the great things about our conference is whether you consider these questions from a professional point of view or from your role as a volunteer, what we're doing this weekend is all about those kinds of questions. It's going to help you, both with your professional life, your personal life, and your role as a volunteer.
So after lunch, Professor Sam Bacharach will be joining us to talk about this and more. You've got about 20 minutes to eat up quick. Our wait staff is ready to plate your lunch course. And Sam will be up. We'll have a special introduction from one of his former students. And then I'll come up at the end to wrap things up. So please go ahead and enjoy your meal. And thanks for being here.
[APPLAUSE]
PAUL SALVATORE: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Paul Salvatore. It's a pleasure to see so many committed, passionate Cornellians at our inaugural alumni leadership conference. We're over 800 strong this weekend.
[APPLAUSE]
That's over 800 current and future alumni leaders of our noble alma mater. Since our theme this weekend is leadership, it's only fitting that our luncheon speaker, Professor Sam Bacharach, is one of the foremost scholars, thinkers, and speakers in the field of leadership.
Sam is the McKelvey-Grant professor in the ILR school, and has been on the Cornell faculty since 1975. He is a member of the Department of Organizational Behavior and, on several occasions, has been chair of that department. Throughout his career, he has been a central figure in the ILR school.
Sam's prolific academic career includes over 150 academic articles, 15 books, and numerous research grants totaling in the millions of dollars. His academic work has been in the areas of negotiation, leadership, organizational change, organizational politics, and employee engagement.
Throughout his career, Sam has been highly committed to undergraduate education at Cornell, having advised many students who have become leaders in business, unions, and government. In many ways, Sam has not only been an extremely active academic researcher and teacher, but as some of you may have seen in the recent issue of Ezra magazine, he's been an academic entrepreneur.
Committed to both Cornell and New York City, Sam has established a thriving master's degree program for adult students taught by Ithaca-based faculty in New York City. Additionally, he has started the Institute for Workplace Studies in New York City, which among other things, provides courses to ILR students who are serving in internships in businesses, law firms, and unions, and government in the city.
He also founded the Smithers Institute, which researches on alcoholism issues in the workplace. Now Sam recently took a little bit of a detour, a change in his career, and found what we could refer to as a second voice, or a popular voice, when he turned his academic work into two best-selling leadership books.
Get them on your side and keep them on your side. And I believe he's going to be having a book signing this weekend for those that are interested in getting those excellent books, which, really, as you'll hear, boil down leadership into a learnable skill. Sam has been at the forefront of the university's entrepreneurial activity in eCornell.
An early devotee among the faculty, he's taken the lead in converting many of his courses into Leadership Online courses that are used by Fortune 500 companies and others. While somewhat sadly, Sam is not a Cornell alum, perhaps his only small deficit, I can attest from my personal experience that it's hard to find a loyaler Cornellian than Sam Bacharach.
He's constantly networking with alumni, both in New York City and throughout the world, connecting them or reconnecting them to Cornell. Sam is passionate about the ILR school. He's passionate about our great university, just like all of we are. I know that Sam is very proud to have the opportunity today to share his insights on leadership with this outstanding group of Cornell leaders. So let's give Sam a big red welcome. My good friend, Sam Bacharach.
[APPLAUSE]
SAM BACHARACH: The reason I'm not a Cornell alum is when I graduated from Jamaica High School, I got turned down.
[LAUGHING]
So, actually, I've come back as a chaired professor for revenge. I mean, I'm asked today to talk about leadership. And I'm asked to be brief. I'm asked to get to the point, and I'm asked to keep it to as few PowerPoints as possible. So I've ignored all that advice, and I'll do what I try to do best.
First of all, I wanted to say something about Cornell. You all come in here as alum. I think one of the things that we often forget, that people like myself, people like my colleague Nick Salvatore sitting over there, we also grew up at Cornell. We came to Cornell in our 20's, or our early 30's. I came to Cornell when I was 26, 27 years old.
Cornell, to me, is as much a home as any place. I grew up there. I came there, and they looked at me with my hair from the University of Wisconsin, and I didn't think I would be here talking to you today. I thought I'd be out of there after four years. Cornell is where a lot of the faculty, as much as you, also grow up.
So it's very much part of our community. When I see something like this, not only am I flattered to be in front of you, but I gotta tell you the truth. It's a little touching. So given that, what-- I didn't practice this. What do you all share with me?
They put you in a room, as they put me in a room, and they tell us to lead. What don't we have? I have a 14-year-old. Built a house in the country. Figured, he's going to love this place. I can't get him to come up to the country. So what do I have in common with Barack Obama and Dave Skorton?
None of us can get people to do exactly what we want them to do. None of us really have as much leverage as we'd like to have. You know, leadership ought to be reduced in Washington. The L is reduced to a little L, not a big L. We really have a lot less leverage in a workplace. You can't get your assistant, your colleagues, you can't get them to do as much as you want them to do.
So the question is, how do you lead without leverage? And if you could figure that out this week, let me know, but I'll try to help. How can you leave without leverage? But before I get to that, last night I had a nice talk with my good friend, Nick, who you've been listening to lately. And I thought about something. Why should you listen to a Cornell professor talk about leadership?
I mean, mostly, if they grew up there in Ithaca, they're doing irrelevant stuff anyway. Why should you listen to us? I'll tell you why. Because the Cornell pedagogy is about talking through ways.
Yes, on the one hand, it's about talking about facts and data and theory. But on the other hand, it's getting our students to think in a particular way. It's making sure that our students leave Cornell not remembering what they learned on page 37, but remembering how to think about what they learned.
So what we try to do in the ILR school, for example, is to make sure our students think in a particular way. So today, I don't want to talk the leadership and the detail. I want present to model leadership that maybe will get you to think in a particular way about leadership. Am I going to say something new?
If you find that I said something new in the next 25, 30 minutes-- Charlie [INAUDIBLE] going here, what the what? If I say something new in the next 25, 30 minutes, there's something wrong with somebody here, and it's not me. Because I don't think I'm going to be saying something that particularly new.
And when I speak to my students, they don't really go a-ha. I just give them order. What I want to do today is give a little order to leadership notions. So my concern for last number of years has been about the pragmatic microskills of leaders. I want to know what it is that leaders do.
Now when you go to Barnes & Noble-- I live on 17th Street in Manhattan, and every so often, I'll go up to Union Square, and I'll check the leadership section. I think every night, they get like, a truck that comes in and dumps 500 leadership books in there.
In all the time, I'm told I have to have a brilliant idea, I need to be irresistible charisma, and, of course, I have to have some prophetic vision in order to lead. Now, clearly most of us have some of this, but we don't-- who has this?
When I ask my students at Cornell, name me leaders, here's the top four. Here's the top four. Martin Luther King, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, and they always throw in Mother Teresa, which also says something about gender biases and leadership, which I won't get into right now.
This whole model is based under some notion of charisma. Why? So I ask people, why Martin Luther King? Recently, I had a chance to speak to a minority caucus in one of my major unions, and I asked someone, why Martin Luther King? He had a new vision, he said to me.
And I turned around and took a deep breath and I said, no, he didn't. He executed on the same vision your grandfather had. Martin Luther King's vision was there, but Martin Luther King's skills was in execution.
If you read what I consider to be-- and the historians here may disagree with me-- the best book I've read on leadership, which is Doris Kearn Goodwin's team of rivals, which I recommend over any management book you want to read, if you read that, you read of a man that knew how to execute. You read of a man that understood, when should I release the Emancipation Proclamation, another book, Big Enough to be Inconsistent by Fredrickson?
A man that thought about these issue. So, for me, leadership is about the capacity to execute. It's about the capacity to get things done. Leadership is about getting things done. Now, if you were to begin to talk to leaders, et cetera, there are four themes all of them understand. And you know, giving this talk against the backdrop of the State of the Union, I kept on thinking, should I refer to it or not. I won't, but you could think about it.
Four things I think effective leaders know. One, we live in a world of uncertainty. And that sounds trivial. That sounds absolutely trivial when I say that. But from an academic point of view, remember economic? Remember [? cerebus ?] paribus? They explain everything as long as everything else is held constant? Well, nothing is held constant.
[LAUGHING]
You leave Cornell. Nothing is constant. Then, their perfect decision. Decision theories. Optimizing decision theory. Well, there's something out there called bounded rationality. What does it mean? We make decisions within the insular world that we make. Sure, we make rational decisions, but only given the information we have.
You're all happily married. Now what if I told you right before you got married that, in fact, your absolute best mate was a woman in Northern Zimbabwe. Did you check it out? Oh, my god. I didn't check Northern Zimbabwe. No one makes perfect decisions. Organizations don't make perfect decisions, and leaders know that. And leaders know that.
And if you listen to the speech, it was about a man that understood that maybe I can't make a perfect decision. Leaders know that. So there's bounded rationale. So what do they do? We go out. We went through a whole period where we talked to everybody about planning.
Planning? Most of us, like Lindbloom said-- and again, these are academic pieces-- in a wonderful article published in the late '50s-- by the way, JD Salinger died, speaking of the late '50s. I just heard it. Lindbloom talks about muddling through.
Hey, most of us muddle through. It's the art of muddling through. I mean, you wanna know what muddling though is? How many times did you lay out a plan when you were a kid to climb a tree?
[LAUGHING]
If you did, even the engineering school won't take you. I mean, for God sake, I mean. How many times did you plan that? What we do, essentially, is muddle through. Now knowing all of this, what do we worry about? What do leaders worry about?
The got you game. And if ever someone said, where does the got you game exist, it exists within a quarter of a mile of this place. The got you game. Why was everything Latin? Got you. Everyone's playing the got you game. And we live in a world of the got you game. Because everybody knows you've never made the perfect decision. Everyone knows you're muddling through.
So now, everyone can say, got you. So in that context-- by the way, in no places is the got you game more predominant then, obviously, in academia. And that's why we call it the got you game. In academia, it's called brown bag seminars. That's what it's called.
But in no place else, the got you game. Under these conditions, they put you together, either here or in a corporation, and they say, lead. Right. You know that there are no perfect decisions. You know there is uncertainty. You know people pray the got you game. You know that planning is close to impossible. So they say lead.
That's what we tell people in Washington. That's the problems. Everyone knows this. But everybody fakes it as if it isn't the case. As if there are perfect decisions, et cetera. So what's my point? My point is that you may have aspirations, and you may have goals, and you may have visions. But if you don't mobilize campaigns and sustain momentum and understand the practical skills of doing that, you're not going to be leading. You're going to be dreaming. You're going to get elected, but you're not going to deliver.
And I'm not talking-- I know. [INAUDIBLE] talking about. No, I'm not. In any job. In any job. Leaders are always in a campaign moment. The challenge is to get people on your side, to sell your ideas, and to deliver, under conditions of uncertainty. I got to get you to believe in my ideas, and then I got to make sure that once you believed in them, I can keep you, and we can actually deliver those ideas. That's where I talk about the micro skills, the pragmatic micro skills of leadership.
You know, charisma is one thing, but it isn't going the distance. Now, what does that mean to me? To me, it means two classic distinctions in the social sciences. One, the ability to mobilize people, to initiate and the political competence to get people on your side. Now, when you've got a group of people and you say to them, you know, especially in corporate world, you say, you know, you need political competence to lead--
I remember someone once at Cornell told me-- actually, it was a-- I won't say who. Actually, someone said to me, I'm not political. You shouldn't be a dean if you're not political.
[LAUGHING]
I don't know if you know this, academia is political. I'm not political. The point is, you need the political skills to get people on your side, and you need the managerial skill to sustain momentum. I've got to sell you my ideas, and then I got to deliver on them, and now all we have to do is take leadership down, to go all of a sudden and get it down to manageable specific, skills. And I just want to make something very [? portinent. ?]
Moving away from charisma gives us a sense of being more democratic about leadership. Because charisma is too correlated with too many other factors. Culture. How you speak the English language. Years ago at NYU, an art historian, when I wanted to become an art historian, a young art historian said to me, you don't speak as an art historian should.
That's why teach organizational behavior today. The point is charisma, these factors have something to do with other [INAUDIBLE], gender. We have to make leadership work on the skills level and begin to train people and stop telling people, either wait for a charisma injection, or you don't have a leadership personality.
Bobby Knight once said to a class of MBA students. "Leadership, I know what leadership is. But one thing I can guarantee you, none of you have it. I go in the front of my class and I say, I know what leadership is, and all of you could learn it and how to do it."
And I think that's important. And what you need to do, you need to do these two things. So I'm going to run through these very quickly first. The skills to mobilize people. Simple principles. Now all of this, obviously, has all the [INAUDIBLE] I can show [INAUDIBLE]. But let me just tell you about the skills to mobilize. How do I get people on my side, and how do I get them to mobilize my side?
First principle. And that's political competence. Political competence. Never act alone. As a leader, you would simply have this sign over your bed. Or better still, on your door before you leave. Never act alone. It doesn't mean take everyone totally seriously. It doesn't mean process things to death. It just says, at least give the sense that you're never acting alone.
Successful leaders create a coalition mindset. Recently, there's been a lot of talk in management about this notion of teams. You know, somehow teams doesn't do it for me. Join my team. But when I go in there, and I ask you to join my coalition, to change the compensation system, [? with ?] move the retail stuff, I go in the retail store to the front line, and I say to the front line, What is your name? Tim?
Tim, you have to change your conversation. I know it's tough on you. I need you on my side to get this done. The sense that I'm actually trying to win you over-- in the long-term, I can simply say, Tim, I'm doing it. Now that really is really empowering. That really is.
I'm telling Tim that he's got some volition. I need him on my side. Real leaders understand that. That doesn't mean that real leaders are foolish they need everyone on their side, but they understand that. They keep a coalition mindset.
A coalition. The idea of a joint alliance Now you don't need a coalition for everything. We at the University, obviously, are going through a very challenging period. Our leadership is now facing off with a real campaign and real challenges. What they clearly understand, they're dealing with issues with far-reaching consequences, high-perceived complexity, an impact [INAUDIBLE].
The big issues. To get big issues implemented in any organization, you really need some people on your side. Again, you don't need to think about the speech the other night. But it's a good thing if you do think about the State of the Union thing. [? It is ?] an adjustment of who I need on my side and what. Doesn't mean you need everybody on your side. But that mentality comes to the benefit of a coalition mindset.
It diffuses risks. Look, if you and I are working on something, I'm sure I'm going to learn something. You may even. But the point is, we learn something, it diffuses the risk. It's establishing legitimacy. Or all right, George. We didn't need the Polish Navy in Iraq, but that's no reason not to go to the United Nations.
If you remember that [INAUDIBLE], the United Nations simply, the idea of creating a coalition that provides legitimacy. It doesn't mean-- so I may deal with my students. I want my students to legitimize also what I do. You need coalition to provide legitimacy, not just resources.
Avoids revenge and avoids sabotage. So coalitions become important. Coalitions, to me, are the key to successful organizations. Now, [INAUDIBLE] years ago in the '50s said that. But when you hear coalition, you go, oh, my god. I don't do coalition.
I think of one coalition, and I think in one case-- I recently was involved in an account insurgency movement, and these two people actually planned on how to take my BlackBerry, my computer, hide it, and make me go with them to Greece for 10 days. My son and my wife. All right.
That is a coalition. That is also a coalition. This is not a cabal. But that's what I'm talking about. And you're going to go in there. Good leaders understand that everyone is going to make an argument for what they're going to say, against what they're going to say. Arguments to resist change.
Now we, by the way, oh, there are, oh, so many arguments. No, there are not. There are only about six arguments someone could say against an idea you have. No one is going to tell you it's a stupid idea, because everybody's for change. No one's-- it's like, it's Apple pie or whatever, or whatever the equivalent of apple pie in the 21st century is.
The point is, there are only about six arguments that you can make. You can say your idea is too risky. Look, I've been at Cornell for 30 years. Nick, don't remind me, it's 34. All right, the point is, we've been here a long time, Nick and I.
And you know what? Now an assistant professor comes and says, we want to change the way we do something now. I am a social scientist. That means I'm proactive, I'm empathetic, and I listen. But I also don't want to change everything overnight right away. We have ways that we do things already.
Nick's got his cubicle. I've got my office. We don't want to change the world right now. We're looking towards our retirement, if anyone can find our 401K someplace. That said, [? we're only ?] going to come back and say our idea is too risky, your idea is too risky. We're for change. We're going to say the idea's only going to make things worse. We're going to say, your idea won't change a thing. You don't know the issues well enough. You're doing it all wrong.
You have an ulterior motive. The point is, no one resists. How often have you gone into meetings and were so concerned about what you're going to say, but didn't spend enough time thinking about what they're going to say? A good friend of ours in a well-known corner, alum, once said to me-- he was vice president of a major corporation. He said to me, the one thing he hated to do is go to a board meeting. When he turned around, he started going down the hall with 10 people. He got in the room, he was there all alone.
The whole idea is you have to anticipate what people are going to say. You've got to understand their mindset. I won't go into these charts and details. But, for example, traditionalists, revolutionary, and the different ways-- we talk about agendas. Where are people coming from?
Think about it for a moment. Think-- and there are ways of doing that. And again, this is a short talk, but you've got to get methodical about thinking about where people are coming from. What type of people are there? What kind of agendas do they have in mind? Where do they stand with their issues?
And once you figure that out-- let me go back to this. For example, there's someone, a revolutionary traditionalist, and then on what issue? I, for example, and I think I share this with a lot of people at Cornell-- I consider myself on academic issues to be a traditionalist. I believe that we need to keep top faculty who are publishing quality journals and doing quality research, and that's what we need to do.
So I, in that sense, am mostly a neoconservative academic, and I most likely share my platform, again, with my friend Nick over there. The point? We are traditionalist. Now, there are other issues that we may be wildly revolutionary. For example, where should we recruit? Why should we not recruit from other places? From other schools?
Who said that Iowa State doesn't have great PhDs? We're revolutionaries in that. The point is, you have to understand people's agenda, but get away from their personality. This is not a personality test. I have to figure out whether Paul is a traditionalist on this issue, a revolutionary-- where does he sand?
And then this whole notion of getting the language. But I just want to give you a flavor. Once I've figured that out, I got to figure out what this administration needs to figure out. Who to convert. Who to convert. And who I can win over.
This is just a chart. Skip it. But where are you going to spend your time? Are you going to spend it with people that think like you? Are you going to spend it in hoping that you establish your base? Are you going to spend it with people that don't think like you, at the other extreme?
In football, the Hail Mary pass. You know? You go down, and you hope someone catches it, so I'll go all the way to the far right. And if I could bring them over, maybe I'll win. But what if they drop the ball? Nothing is worse than trying to go to the extreme, and suddenly have your door slammed in your face, and suddenly, people go, we're not with you. So people have to think strategically about where-- and there are rules. Where are they going to put their resources?
The other thing-- get them to believe in you. Establish your credibility. But for God's sake, tell them what's in it for them. Get them committed to Cornell. Get them involved in Cornell. Tell them all that. But you know what? If giving a little money gets them a tax deduction, that's not so bad.
Tell them also what's in it. There's two sides to the math on these things. So when I talked about-- and then there's the whole issue of justifying your initiative. How are you going to justify your initiative? Are you going to tell people just to look at the numbers? Are you going to tell them everybody is doing it?
Again, there's a wonderful literature about justifying your initiative. So what's my point here? This is the mobilization problem. This is a long way from charisma. I can, in fact, train, and you can, people in these specific skills of mobilization.
Get people to think about how they're going to justify an initiative. Get people to think where other people are coming from specifically, not sort of in a Gestalt type of way. Get them to be analytical. Get people to focus on these things. That's what leadership is about. And when you have strategic meetings, don't just strategize what-- I mean, we know where we want to go. That takes about 20 minutes.
Now, who do we need on our side to get there? And that takes a long time. And that's politics with a small p. That's politics with a small p. And that's the political issue.
Now very quickly-- and I promise I'll be off in a few seconds. That's another Cornell professor line.
[LAUGHING]
Sustaining momentum. OK. I got them. They're all on my side.
[LAUGHING]
Bingo. This is the speech. I'm not making reference to the speech. But what happened in New Orleans? The issue is someone took the-- some place, there was a sense-- are we taking the eye off the ball? Just because we're so wonderful-- that's why I think events like this one-- we're so wonderful. We got people on our side. Now, let's sit back and relax for a while, or just talk with the base that we have. Let's relax.
No. Now we have to manage momentum. Not this. We've got to manage momentum. We have to really begin to understand how to manage momentum. So now you're showing your political competence. Wonderful. I've shown that I'm politically smart. Great.
Now, show me that you can also manage. That's the other thing I love. Well, he's a manager. He's not a leader. Oh, he's a leader. He's not a manager. I sound schizophrenic to me. But the point is, I don't want a leader that can't manage, and I don't particularly want a manager that can't lead.
You know, I understand academics, we need dichotomies. There are a lot of articles written about-- why anyone would read articles, and what's the difference between a manager and a leader is beyond me. But there are a lot of them out there.
But point in fact, we want both. Now you have to manage for momentum. What does that mean? How do you sustain momentum? So I'd like to leave you with just a couple of points of sustaining momentum.
What was the issues that are going on? You know, to me, once you're trying to move something ahead, yes, you want to have some central control. You want to create a sense of team. You want your team to move the thing ahead. You want hierarchies, but you don't want to forget-- you have hierarchies and teams at the same time.
You don't want to just give them, go out there and do it. You want hierarchies and team. You want control and teams at the same time. Two. Yeah, you want to discuss issues, and you want to solve problems, and you want to figure out how to move your campaign, and you want to discuss what you want to do. Enough already.
At a certain point, create a problem-solving culture, but don't process things to death. Don't process things to death. You've got the right-- [INAUDIBLE] saying, enough, we've got to get something out of here, moving and getting it done. And you have to know when to do that.
Next, apropos, make an adjustment. Fine. But make sure you don't overreact. Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. These are managerial skills. When you come to me, and you're making a point, and I say, oh, god, that's terrible, what do I do? Get a heart attack on the spot, and then suddenly adjust and sort of move to Brazil? I don't know. But the point is, I need to make an adjustment that allows me to go the course, but not overreact.
What are we debating now? Take a look at what the debate now is about. Is it going to be an overreaction, or an underreaction on health care? Take a look what the debate is about. Should we overreact, underreact? He has he given too much control to the Congress? Maybe he should have taken more control.
It's about momentum. It's about-- we're not simply debating management. We're debating about managing for momentum. And we're all second guessing this administration on these particular issues-- not on [INAUDIBLE]. [INAUDIBLE] that there's too much autonomy in Congress. Are they talking too much about the issue? I don't know what the issues-- or, in fact, are they overreacting?
Next, you want to give people autonomy, but you want to give them some parameters. You've got to control it. Finally, you want to celebrate individuals, you want to celebrate the collective, the sense of the collective. But there are also individuals you need to recognize to keep things moving. All this is about moving things ahead.
And finally, and my favorite, don't let the coalition mindset slip away. You see, we're going to come to this event, and you're going to feel uplifted by the Cornell spirit, certainly not the carpeting in this room.
[LAUGHING]
You'll be uplifted by the Cornell spirit, and you'll go away. The challenge for development people, which I don't envy, is how to maintain that coalition mindset. The challenge of the administration right now is how to maintain the coalition mindset. That's what the challenge becomes.
So in nutshell, leadership for me, especially in times of change, isn't really about-- is, OK, charisma. All right, I'll grant you. But it's about the specific skills of mobilizing a campaign in your organization. It's about the specific skills of sustaining momentum.
You know, when I talk often to organizations and groups, we talk about change leadership. This is a hard time for everybody, a hard time for university, a hard time-- and where we take this approach, we want to create leadership culture in an organization. We don't want to simply create leaders. One other thing about leadership, the idea of we need to train leaders-- no, we need to create a leadership culture. We need to create a leadership entrepreneurial culture where the very skills that Charlie [INAUDIBLE] has as the head of his organization, everyone else has in his organization.
We need to create an entrepreneurial leadership culture in the public sector, in the private sector, at Cornell, and in my kid's high school. That's what it's all about. In leadership, it's about micro, practical little skills. My suggestion is, go to Barnes & Noble a little less. Thank you very, very much. I appreciate it.
[APPLAUSE]
Was I on the money time wise? I was terrified that Charlie would go. You know? And anyway, any questions? Any ex-students here of mine? All really? Woo. When? When were you there?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
SAM BACHARACH: '80?
AUDIENCE: [INAUDIBLE]
SAM BACHARACH: [INAUDIBLE] your first year? All right.
[LAUGHING]
Anyway. Thank you very, very much for your time and your attention. I appreciate it greatly. Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
CHRIS MARSHALL: Wow. That was awesome. One more time, let's thank Sam for that great talk.
[APPLAUSE]
What a great way to kick things off for a leadership conference. And as a reminder, the books that Sam is-- I think these are from your books. Is that correct, Sam? What you just gave us?
SAM BACHARACH: The slides-- here's a Cornell plug. The slides, actually, are compliments of my eCornell courses, and to show the quality of stuff that eCornell does. Those are actually slides that are part of the eCornell courses. So they're part of the Cornell entrepreneurial effort, if you will.
CHRIS MARSHALL: Great. But if you want to get a copy of those books, Get Them On Your Side, Keep Them On Your Side, tonight between 6:00 and 7:15, out near the reception-- I'm sorry, near the registration area. Sam will be there, able to sign, autograph, personalize, whatever you'd like, your copy of your book.
And that's it for this program. You have a few minutes still. We're actually back ahead of schedule, thanks to the aggressive talk. That was fantastic. Assertive, not aggressive. And we have time. So the next sessions begin-- it's about 1 o'clock now. Next sessions begin at 1:30. Please stay. Enjoy the rest of your meal. Desserts are on your table, and have a great afternoon.
Oh, thank you. Thank you. Are we singing?
AUDIENCE: That's customary.
CHRIS MARSHALL: So, will those that are here through the Alumni Glee Club and Chorus please join me on stage. My apologies. I know it's on the program. This is not a skill set of mine, so I turn the microphone over to those that can do it, and they'll lead us in the singing of the alma mater. And you have till about 1:30 to get to your next session.
[SIDE CONSERVATION]
SPEAKER: Everybody up.
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
(SINGING) Far above Cayuga's waters with its waves of blue stands our noble alma mater, glorious to view. Lift the chorus, speed it onward, now her praises tell. Hail to three, our alma mater. Hail, all hail, Cornell.
Far above the busy humming of the bustling town, reared against the arch of heavens, looks she proudly down. Lift the chorus, speed it onward, loud her praises tell. Hail to thee our alma mater, hail, all hail, Cornell.
[APPLAUSE]
[SIDE CONVERSATION]
CHRIS MARSHALL: Now we're done. Please enjoy the rest of the afternoon. 1:30, the next sessions begin. 1:30.
Leadership has been mystified, commoditized, and obscured. Why have we made it so difficult? Combining insights from over 30 years of academic research and practical experience, Professor Samuel B. Bacharach will present leadership as a straightforward set of pragmatic rules for execution.
Samuel B. Bacharach is the McKelvey-Grant Professor in the Department of Organizational Behavior at Cornell University. He has been on the Cornell faculty for over 30 years and has chaired the Department of Organizational Behavior.
