Jan Nyholm, founding partner at WATC Consulting AG, recently published a book on leadership that is definitely worth reading. Under the provocative title ‘Leadership, Assholes, Blockchain and YOU’, Jan aims at inspiring the reader to “think like a leader and live a more successful life, while helping solving the biggest challenges the world faces.”
Here’s an impression on what is expecting the reader:
“We are living in, what I consider to be, the most exciting time of all times. Despite the constant flow of negative news, the world seems to be doing better than ever: fewer wars, lowest poverty rate, highest literacy rate, lowest child mortality rate, and most people live under the banner of freedom. Globalisation and technology have seen the world grow to a standard never achieved before. However, we could do much better …
Wealth is distributed unevenly and this is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, threat the world faces. As world history has shown, a huge discrepancy between rich and poor is neither acceptable nor sustainable. With new technologies set to possibly further this ever-widening wealth gap, the world needs great leaders, now more than ever, to guide us through a population of 10 billion, where the ‘elite’ 1% own 50% of all wealth. Every major positive progression in world history, political or business-wise, has been driven by a great leader. We need great political leaders who can provide productive policies capable of decreasing the wealth gap. We need great business leaders who harness new technologies, not merely to provide profit for a few but to have a positive impact on greater society. We need to get rid of all the ego-centric, incompetent company managers as well as corrupt politicians; they simply block progress between real leaders and doers. With new technologies such as Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence (AI), we are provided with opportunities as well as threats on a scale unimaginable. Blockchain alone will transform business and how we live, maybe more drastically than the Internet did, and we must ensure this technology becomes part of the solution, rather than it accelerating the problem. We must re-think and re-design wealth distribution policies, the social responsibilities of businesses, as well as education to be fit for a technology-driven world. And maybe, most importantly, we must ask ourselves why humankind is punching below its potential, with ignorant and destructive people taking the lead in too many places.
This book will not provide profound statistics or scientific solutions. The book mostly describes my own humble life experiences and resulting views, which I will bluntly share. It’s written to inspire people to start having the right conversations and act on them, to think like leaders. Post Covid-19 and the next ten years can be the best the world has ever seen, if each of us steps up and lives our full potential.” (Jan Nyholm, ‘Leadership, Assholes, Blockchain and YOU‘)
