Launching Leadership Quotes

Mentoring someone is not creating them in your own image, but giving them the opportunity to create themselves.

Being a leader is a study in managed frustration.

Leaders lead for the joy of creating something bigger than themselves.

Abraham Lincoln said, “Example is not the main thing in influencing other people; it’s the only thing.

If you're not called crazy when you launch something new, it means you're not thinking BIG enough.

Leadership is about doing the right things; management is about doing those things in the right way.

Life should be about purpose and meaning and cause and fulfilling our personal, God-given destinies.

Leadership is influence—nothing more, nothing less.

Leadership is the influence of others in a productive, vision-driven direction and is done through the example, conviction, and character of the leader.

Stalin’s policies that autumn led inexorably to famine all across the grain-growing regions of the USSR. But in November and December 1932 he twisted the knife further in Ukraine, deliberately creating a deeper crisis. Step by step, using bureaucratic language and dull legal terminology, the Soviet leadership, aided by their cowed Ukrainian counterparts, launched a famine within the famine, a disaster specifically targeted at Ukraine and Ukrainians.

A product leader is ultimately responsible for the success or failure of a product and, by extension, the company itself. The impact of that cannot be underestimated.

Shipping work must also solve a problem and result in customers truly receiving value from whatever was shipped.

Before launching a product, I ask the marketing department to build a landing page (marketing page) for that product so I can survey interest in the product itself.

leadership, and particularly turnaround leadership, is about defining a dream and tethering all aspects of the organization to it.

Ninety-five percent of my assets drive out the gate every evening. It’s my job to maintain a work environment that keeps those people coming back every morning.”2 Having a great culture helps him do that.

When I’m sitting by my gay friends in church, I hear everything through their ears. When I’m with my recently divorced friend, I hear it through hers. This is good practice. It helps uncenter us (which is, you know, the whole counsel of the New Testament) and sharpens our eye for our sisters and brothers. It trains us to think critically about community, language, felt needs, and inclusion, shaking off autopilot and setting a wider table. We must examine who is invited, who is asked to teach, who is asked to contribute, who is called into leadership. It is one thing to “feel nice feelings” toward the minority voice; it is something else entirely to challenge existing power structures to include the whole variety of God’s people. This is not hard or fancy work. It looks like diversifying small groups and leadership, not defaulting to homogeny as the standard operating procedure. Closer in, it looks like coffee dates, dinner invites, the warm hand of friendship extended to women or families outside your demographic. It means considering the stories around the table before launching into an assumed shared narrative. It includes the old biblical wisdom on being slow to speak and quick to listen, because as much as we love to talk, share, and talk-share some more, there is a special holiness reserved for the practice of listening and deferring.

That day was an education for me. I'll never forget it. Standing in teh doorway, watching the reaction of the men and women gathered there, I witnessed the poewrful effect of unwavering, uncomplaining, uncompromising leadership. It changed me. It was one of those moments when you say to yourself, [in italics] That's what I want to be when I grow up. and you know you've grown up a little already, simply because you recognize it. Norman called Ducky-Bob's party supply and ordered chairs while I wheeled the second bed out to the hallway. Mommy, Margaret Valentine, and I rushed around, getting everything we needed to cater the cramped but memorable even, and on Tuesday morning, about three dozen top members of the Chili's team jammed into Norman's room at Presbyterian Hospital. Norman didn't what his people to see him lying down, so I'd helped him get into a jogging suit and robe, and propped him up on one of those rolling carts they use to distribute meals. He was in unthinkable pain, but he spoke to them from his heart about how much he appreciated them, how committed he was to the success of the organization, and how far they could all go together.

In current times when everyone tells us to work smart, they are right. Be idealist, bring grand big ideas, innovate and launch thrilling initiatives but then, work hard. Work real hard because all that has ever been achieved in this world is by true dedication, persistence and consistent hard work".

For nearly two years, under Lyndon Johnson’s domestic leadership, Republicans and Democrats had toiled together to engineer the greatest advances in civil rights since the Civil War and to launch a comprehensive, progressive vision of American society that would leave a permanent imprint on the national landscape.

Remember Martin L. King’s organization, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference? When it staged marches in Alabama, that state’s governor, George Wallace, called the organization’s members “professional agitators with pro-Communist affiliations.” Sound familiar? How close to “outside agitators”! The phrase begs the question: outside of what? The state? America? This country is called the United States of America, founded upon a national Constitution. Do all citizens have the right to protest, or just some? Is what happened to Mike Brown a local matter, or is his unjustifiable killing actually a national issue? It’s not the job of media to police protests—deciding who are “good” demonstrators, who are “bad” ones. Their job is to report what is happening, period. Were it not for these protests, let us be frank, the mass media would’ve ignored the crimes police committed against Michael Brown, against his family, against his community, and against his fellow citizens—us. If media were doing their job, reporting on the vicious violence launched against young Blacks the nation over, perhaps Michael Brown would be alive today. Let us look at the cops, almost 98 percent of whom are outsiders to Ferguson. They work there, they kill there, but they don’t live there. They dwell in neighboring, whiter counties and towns. Who are the real outside agitators?

Why the Hürtgen forest was not bypassed is still a major question. Possibly the Allies feared the Germans would open the floodgates on the Ruhr dams just to the forest’s south. Opening the gates would have flooded much of the land to the northeast. Some experts feel that the dams could have been captured and the forest still bypassed, but it is possible that the Allied leadership felt that the forest could also have been used as a base from which the Germans could launch a major counteroffensive.

Adam Lashinsky explained how Amazon. com had gone on a “military hiring spree” because Jeff was impressed with veterans’ logistical know-how and bias for action.3 In fact, Amazon.com has a dedicated military recruiting website and a highly consistent hiring and retention record for ex-military personnel. This practice of hiring veterans isn’t about expressing gratitude for ex-soldiers’ service to our country. Veterans fit Jeff’s business model. As a result, Amazon.com has not bothered to launch a huge PR campaign about its military employment program. Jeff just realized it was good business.

The fears of militarization Holbrooke had expressed in his final, desperate memos, had come to pass on a scale he could have never anticipated. President Trump had concentrated ever more power in the Pentagon, granting it nearly unilateral authority in areas of policy once orchestrated across multiple agencies, including the State Department. In Iraq and Syria, the White House quietly delegated more decisions on troop deployments to the military. In Yemen and Somalia, field commanders were given authority to launch raids without White House approval. In Afghanistan, Trump granted the secretary of defense, General James Mattis, sweeping authority to set troop levels. In public statements, the White House downplayed the move, saying the Pentagon still had to adhere to the broad strokes of policies set by the White House. But in practice, the fate of thousands of troops in a diplomatic tinderbox of a conflict had, for the first time in recent history, been placed solely in military hands. Diplomats were no longer losing the argument on Afghanistan: they weren’t in it. In early 2018, the military began publicly rolling out a new surge: in the following months, up to a thousand new troops would join the fourteen thousand already in place. Back home, the White House itself was crowded with military voices. A few months into the Trump administration, at least ten of twenty-five senior leadership positions on the president’s National Security Council were held by current or retired military officials. As the churn of firings and hirings continued, that number grew to include the White House chief of staff, a position given to former general John Kelly. At the same time, the White House ended the practice of “detailing” State Department officers to the National Security Council. There would now be fewer diplomatic voices in the policy process, by design.

. Our platoon, along with third and fourth, launched out of the Combat Outpost on foot, with two Humvees mounting medium machine guns in support. After fighting our way west through the city for an hour or so, Joker One received orders to hit a building “just north of the Saddam mosque minaret, at the very middle of the city.” Immediately, the Ox’s voice crackled over the radio. “Roger, Bastard Five, will do. Be advised, what’s a minaret? Over.” A long silence followed, then the radio barked back: “Joker Five, the minaret is the large tower that every single mosque in the city has next to it. Looks like a big dick. Over.

Catapulting change requires meticulous leadership that is mindful of all those elements that are seemingly trivial to most but produce positive outcomes that hit us as hard as tsunamis. It’s the sort of leadership that empowers and engages people to move deep with themselves, and yet it mobilizes them with others in a manner that is coordinated, collaborative, and cohesive. These are fostered because leaders have the innate ability to make you feel that you are working “with” them not “for” them in such a way that motivates you to spring off the mattress each morning to make meaningful contributions because you feel valued, respected, empowered, and connected to an overarching goal.

The enormous spotlight that focused on King, combined with the construction of Rosa Parks as a saintly symbol, hid the women's long struggle in the dimly lit background, obscuring the origins of the MIA and erasing women from the movement. For decades, the Montgomery bus boycott has been told as a story triggered by Rosa Park's spontaneous refusal to give up her seat followed by the triumphant leadership of men like Fred Gray, Martin Luther King, Jr., E. D. Nixon, and Ralph Abernathy. While these men had a major impact on the emerging protest movement, it was black women's decade-long struggle against mistreatment and abuse by white bus drivers and police officers that launched the boycott. Without an appreciation for the particular predicaments of black women in the Jim Crow South, it is nearly impossible to understand why thousands of working-class and hundreds of middle-class black women chose to walk rather than ride the bus for 381 days.

The governor is like the boy I saw once at the launching of a ship. When everything was ready, they picked out a boy and sent him under the ship to knock away the trigger and let her go. At the critical moment everything depended on the boy. He had to do the job well by a direct, vigorous blow, and then lie flat and keep still while the ship slid over him. The boy did everything right; but he yelled as if he were being murdered, from the time he got under the keel until he got out. I thought the skin was all scraped off his back; but he wasn’t hurt at all. The master of the yard told me that this boy was always chosen for that job, that he did his work well, that he never had been hurt, but that he always squealed in that way. That’s just the way with the governor. Make up your minds that he is not hurt, and that he is doing his work right, and pay no attention to his squealing. He only wants to make you understand how hard his task is, and that he is on hand performing

we have much to learn from the struggles in Alabama and Mississippi in the early 1960s. In the spring of 1963 the Southern Christian Leadership Conference led by Dr. King launched a “fill the jails” campaign to desegregate downtown department stores and schools in Birmingham. But few local blacks were coming forward. Black adults were afraid of losing their jobs, local black preachers were reluctant to accept the leadership of an “Outsider,” and city police commissioner Bull Connor had everyone intimidated. Facing a major defeat, King was persuaded by his aide, James Bevel, to allow any child old enough to belong to a church to march. So on D-day, May 2, before the eyes of the whole nation, thousands of schoolchildren, many of them first graders, joined the movement and were beaten, fire-hosed, attacked by police dogs, and herded off to jail in paddy wagons and school buses. The result was what has been called the “Children’s Miracle.” Inspired and shamed into action, thousands of adults rushed to join the movement. All over the country rallies were called to express outrage against Bull Connor’s brutality. Locally, the power structure was forced to desegregate lunch counters and dressing rooms in downtown stores, hire blacks to work downtown, and begin desegregating the schools. Nationally, the Kennedy administration, which had been trying not to alienate white Dixiecrat voters, was forced to begin drafting civil rights legislation as the only way to forestall more Birminghams. The next year as part of Mississippi Freedom Summer, activists created Freedom Schools because the existing school system (like ours today) had been organized to produce subjects, not citizens. People in the community, both children and adults, needed to be empowered to exercise their civil and voting rights. A mental revolution was needed. To bring it about, reading, writing, and speaking skills were taught through discussions of black history, the power structure, and building a movement. Everyone took this revolutionary civics course, then chose from more academic subjects such as algebra and chemistry. All over Mississippi, in church basements and parish halls, on shady lawns and in abandoned buildings, volunteer teachers empowered thousands of children and adults through this community curriculum. The Freedom Schools of 1964 demonstrated that when Education involves young people in making community changes that matter to them, when it gives meaning to their lives in the present instead of preparing them only to make a living in the future, young people begin to believe in themselves and to dream of the future.

You may not recognize the name Steven Schussler, CEO of Schussler Creative Inc., but you are probably familiar with his very popular theme restaurant Rainforest Café. Steve is one of the scrappiest people I know, with countless scrappy stories. He is open and honest about his wins and losses. This story about how he launched Rainforest Café is one of my favorites: Steve first envisioned a tropical-themed family restaurant back in the 1980s, but unfortunately, he couldn’t persuade anyone else to buy into the idea at the time. Not willing to give up easily, he decided to get scrappy and be “all in.” To sell his vision, he transformed his own split-level suburban home into a living, mist-enshrouded rain forest to convince potential investors that the concept was viable. Yes, you read that correctly—he converted his own house into a jungle dwelling complete with rock outcroppings, waterfalls, rivers, and layers of fog and mist that rose from the ground. The jungle included a life-size replica of an elephant near the front door, forty tropical birds in cages, and a live baby baboon named Charlie. Steve shared the following details: Every room, every closet, every hallway of my house was set up as a three-dimensional vignette: an attempt to present my idea of what a rain forest restaurant would look like in actual operation. . . . [I]t took me three years and almost $400,000 to get the house developed to the point where I felt comfortable showing it to potential investors. . . . [S]everal of my neighbors weren’t exactly thrilled to be living near a jungle habitat. . . . On one occasion, Steve received a visit from the Drug Enforcement Administration. They wanted to search the premises for drugs, presuming he may have had an illegal drug lab in his home because of his huge residential electric bill. I imagine they were astonished when they discovered the tropical rain forest filled with jungle creatures. Steve’s plan was beautiful, creative, fun, and scrappy, but the results weren’t coming as quickly as he would have liked. It took all of his resources, and he was running out of time and money to make something happen. (It’s important to note that your scrappy efforts may not generate results immediately.) I asked Steve if he ever thought about quitting, how tight was the money really, and if there was a time factor, and he said, “Yes to all three! Of course I thought about quitting. I was running out of money and time.” Ultimately, Steve’s plan succeeded. After many visits and more than two years later, gaming executive and venture capitalist Lyle Berman bought into the concept and raised the funds necessary to get the Rainforest Café up and running. The Rainforest Café chain became one of the most successful themed restaurants ever created, and continues that way under Landry’s Restaurants and Tilman Fertitta’s leadership. Today, Steve creates restaurant concepts in fantastic warehouses far from his residential neighborhood!

Towards the end of the last century the pursuit of Utopia entered the political mainstream. In future only one kind of regime would be legitimate: American-style democratic capitalism – the final form of human government, as it was termed in the fleeting and now forgotten mood of hubris that followed the Soviet collapse. Led by the United States, western governments committed themselves to installing democracy throughout the world – an impossible dream that in many countries could only produce chaos. At the same time they launched a ‘war against terror’ that failed to distinguish between new threats and the normal conflicts of history. The Right was possessed by fantasies, and like the utopian visions of the last century – but far more quickly – its grandiose projects have crumbled into dust. In the twentieth century it seemed utopian movements could come to power only in dictatorial regimes. Yet after 9/ 11 utopian thinking came to shape foreign policy in the world’s pre-eminent democracy. In many ways the Bush administration behaved like a revolutionary regime. It was prepared to engage in pre-emptive attacks on sovereign states in order to achieve its goals, while at the same time it has been ready to erode long-established American freedoms. It established a concentration camp in Guantánamo whose inmates are beyond the reach of normal legal protection, denied the protection of habeas corpus to terrorist suspects, set up an apparatus of surveillance to monitor the population and authorized American officials to practise what in any other country would be defined as torture. Under the leadership of Tony Blair, Britain suffered, in a more limited way, a similar transformation.

Finally, you are ready to launch your church. Begin by developing action steps and goals that can be used as benchmarks to track your progress. In your planning, always be sensitive to God’s sovereignty. What matters is not so much the final detailed plan itself as the actual process of planning. Reality will always alter your plan, but the planning process will equip you to deal with surprises and new realities in a way that is informed by and consistent with your model and vision. Your specific action steps and plans should include these basics: • goals for funding and how to reach them • goals for concrete ministries/programs and how to reach them • goals for leadership development and how to reach them

What is common in high-performance teams is that they are cross-functional, collocated, and autonomous.

The Role of the Launch Coordination Engineer Our Launch Coordination Engineering team is composed of Launch Coordination Engineers (LCEs), who are either hired directly into this role, or are SREs with hands-on experience running Google services. LCEs are held to the same technical requirements as any other SRE, and are also expected to have strong communication and leadership skills

product leaders are “the implementers of the company vision,” always pushing the company forward by “focusing on what is most important to the company — what do we want to accomplish as a business and what do we need to do to get there?

The best product managers, therefore, focus on defining and prioritizing problems, not solutions.

What is Heifetz doing? Launching a course on leadership by showing students what happens when you abdicate leadership. You don’t eradicate power. You just hand the opportunity to take charge to someone else—in this case, the students. You are not easing their way or setting them free. You are pumping them full of confusion and anxiety.

... anybody can put on the hat of `the boss` to bring out about important decisions, launch new initiatives, hold under-performing colleagues to account, help resolve conflicts, or take over leadership if results are bad and action is needed.

In order to set your team up for success as it scales, it’s important to consider what the core product and design principles for your organization are — and articulate them clearly so everyone in the team understands them and can apply them in their work.

At the time of The Slip, in 2008, we were burning a million dollars a day, and the postponement of the launch added four hundred extra days.

he would launch a massive brainstorming sessions and gather the opinions and thoughts of all his people. The idea there was to make a list of ten priorities based on the team beliefs, but in the end, he would only keep three, thus making them even more important (while keeping a certain form of control over the decision-making process).

But how do you come ‘offline’ when so much of our daily lives is moving ‘online’? Every month new sites and online services are launched. If you need to check anything – about a new school for your children, medical treatment, tourist destination or recipe – you go online. Bill Gates put it so well when he called the Internet the ‘town square for the global village of tomorrow’. Could you spend a week or even a day without reading your emails, using social media or going online? Someone recently joked with me that having Internet access is more important than having food or water.

Kuribayashi had the benefit of having traveled in the United States, and he had even attended Harvard for a short time. In his travels, he learned that American industry could be militarized at the touch of a button, and that American popular opinion was sensitive to high casualties in conflicts. If anything, his openly stated view that the U.S. should not be engaged as a military enemy may have contributed to his being given the task of defending Iwo Jima by leadership who may have viewed the defense of the island as a suicide mission. Once assigned his post, however, he took on the matter of American sensitivity to casualties as a tangible strategy – “If American casualties are high enough, Washington will think twice before launching another invasion against Japanese territory.”[2] As for the Japanese view of casualties, a different mindset altogether was predominant: the strategy of sacrifice with no survivors. When

pilot announced the problem and added, “There are four of us but only three parachutes. It’s my plane, my parachutes—I have to take one of them.” The others agreed. He strapped the parachute on and jumped to safety. Left on the aircraft were a brilliant professor (a rocket scientist, no less), a minister of religion and a backpacker. The professor jumped to his feet insisting, “I am one of the greatest minds in the country. I must survive. I must take one of the remaining parachutes.” The others agreed. He prepared himself and launched out. The elderly clergyman started to explain to the young traveler, “I’ve lived a long life. I do not fear death. You take the last parachute.” She stopped him mid-sentence with, “No, it’s fine. That brilliant professor just jumped out with my backpack strapped on!

growing, like a storm on the horizon, gathering, the echo of thunder distant but present. For whatever reason, it doesn’t affect me. I am certain that there is something out there, waiting for us. We press on, into the darkness, barreling at maximum speed, the three nuclear warheads on our ship armed and ready. I feel like Ahab hunting the white whale. I am a man possessed. When I launched into space aboard the Pax, my life was empty. I didn’t know Emma. My brother was a stranger to me. I had no family, no friends. Only Oscar. Now I have something to lose. Something to live for. Something to fight for. My time in space has changed me. When I left Earth the first time, I was still the rebel scientist the world had cast out. I felt like an outsider, a renegade. Now I have become a leader. I’ve learned to read people, to try to understand them. That was my mistake before. I trudged ahead with my vision of the world, believing the world would follow me. But the truth is, true leadership requires understanding those you lead, making the best choices for them, and most of all, convincing them when they don’t realize what’s best for them. Leadership is about moments like this, when the people you’re charged with protecting have doubts, when the odds are against you. Every morning, the crew gathers on the bridge. Oscar and Emma strap in on each side of me and we sit around the table and everyone gives their departmental updates. The ship is operating at peak efficiency. So is the crew. Except for the elephant in the room. “As you know,” I begin, “we are still on course for Ceres. We have not ordered the other ships in the Spartan fleet to alter course. The fact that the survey drones have found nothing, changes nothing. Our enemy is advanced. Sufficiently advanced to alter our drones and hide itself. With that said, we should discuss the possibility that there is, in fact, nothing out there on Ceres. We need to prepare for that eventuality.” Heinrich surveys the rest of the crew before speaking. “It could be a trap.” He’s always to the point. I like that about him. “Yes,” I reply, “it could be. The entity, or harvester, or whatever is out there, could be manufacturing the solar cells elsewhere—deeper in the solar system, or from another asteroid in the belt. It could be sending the solar cells to Ceres and then toward the sun, making them look as though they were manufactured on Ceres. There could be a massive bomb or attack drones waiting for us at Ceres.” “We could split our fleet,

We get to model Jesus’love in action to our kids. We get to set an example of a servant’s heart. We get to be the hands and feet of Jesus to these little ones. We get to point our kids to Jesus and pour into them in their most formative years. And we get to acknowledge our struggles, admit when we are wrong, and experience their forgiveness. Ultimately, we have the opportunity to show our kids what humble leadership looks like, and that’s powerful stuff! And sometimes we get opportunities to see all that work pay off in big dividends as our kids model Jesus’love right back to us! If you’re feeling the work you are doing is mundane and thankless, picture me leaning in and looking into your eyes right now and saying this: Don’t give up. Press on. Keep loving the people around you wholeheartedly. Keep investing. Keep showing up and leading with humility. It is making a difference—even if you can’t see it right now.

The key to market leadership is consistent high performance over the long haul. The Boeing Company survived as an industry leader for over a century in the exact same manner--by designing and building the finest and most-advanced aerospace products known to mankind.

You can make do without a cofounder. You can survive for a while without a team. But you can’t make it without a mentor. Find at least one person who you deeply trust and who believes in you. Not a life coach or an executive leadership consultant, not an agency, not someone who’s read a lot of case studies and is ready to charge you by the hour. And not your parents—they love you too much to be impartial. Find an operational, smart, useful mentor who has done it before, who likes you and wants to help. You will need to lean on them when you start a company. Or even when you launch a project within a big company.

Sample Quarterly Review Summary Successes Maintained peak-performance habits Stabilized the company and team Raised funds for next phase of growth Upgraded company-wide marketing Launched leadership development program Failures Worked too much, felt worn out Failed to follow-up on marketing project on time Missed language learning goals in Portuguese Extended two project deadlines unnecessarily Didn’t spend sufficient time with family and friends Insights Perfectionism is a big development opportunity Reading should be scheduled into the day The mind needs to be trained as much as the body Weekly reviews must result in new weekly commitments I want to become world-class at peak performance Actions Determine what are the non-negotiables in my life Increase output with a color-coded master calendar Bring the joy/be more intentional Hire a virtual assistant Create a weekly accountability checklist

That’s why, when it comes to generating business ideas, customers come first. Before the product or service. Even before the idea. To build a business, you need someone to sell to. I can’t tell you how many times someone has emailed me saying, “What do you think of this business idea?” My auto-reply? “Have you asked what the customer thinks?” Steve Jobs said, “You have to start with the customer experience and work backwards.” Jeff Bezos, too, insists everyone at Amazon use a Customer First Approach to generate ideas and decide which to develop. The first of his sixteen Leadership Principles—Customer Obsession—starts by saying, “Leaders start with the customer and work backwards.” Working backwards prioritizes access to a group of customers (a group you probably belong to) and focuses on an aspect of a customer’s life that doesn’t work. If you do it this way, you’re assured of nailing the three Ws of business right from the start: Who you are selling to What problem you’re solving Where they are Your goals in this chapter are to use the Customer First Approach, to narrow in on three markets that you’ll target, to use your knowledge and experience of these markets to generate lots of ideas, and then to choose the three you think are the most likely to succeed. It’s the first step in the three-part Million Dollar Weekend process, in which you’ll learn to sell ideas to a small early adopter group before you’ve built the product (or spent a cent) in order to validate that there is a market that will pay. Repeat, fast and cheap, until it hits. Experiment, experiment, experiment—BOOM!

The success of product development and launch strategies for businesses in all industries is greatly influenced by best market research companies in Myanmar. These businesses enable businesses to make informed decisions that drive innovation and market penetration by providing valuable insights into consumer behaviors, market trends, and competitive landscapes. In today's dynamic business environment, it is essential for organizations looking to create competitive products and launch them successfully to comprehend the significance of market research. This article looks at how market research companies play a variety of roles in product development and launch strategies. It emphasizes the importance of working together, making decisions based on data, and taking advantage of market research trends for long-term growth and market leadership. 1. Companies' Introduction to Market Research An Overview of Business Market Research Market research is essential for helping businesses comprehend their market, competition, and customers. To make decisions based on accurate information, it involves gathering and evaluating data. Contribution of best market research companies in Myanmar to Product Development Market research firms are specialized in collecting insights that can be used to inform product development strategies for businesses. They assist in determining the demand for new products, assessing consumer behavior, and identifying market opportunities. 2. Understanding Consumer Needs and Preferences is Critical to Product Development Market research provides businesses with in-depth insights into consumer preferences, needs, and actions. In order to create products that resonate with the intended audience, this understanding is essential. Research can be used to assess market demand and potential, allowing businesses to make decisions about product development based on data. New products' chances of success are boosted while risks are reduced. 3. Utilizing Market Research for Launch Strategies Market Segmentation and Targeting Market research enables businesses to divide their target market into subsets based on behavior, psychographics, and demographics. For a more successful product launch, this segmentation helps tailor marketing strategies to specific consumer groups. Pricing and Positioning Strategies Businesses can figure out the best pricing strategy for their products based on consumer perceptions, competitor pricing, and market trends by conducting market research. Additionally, research aids in effectively positioning products in the market to set them apart from rivals. 4. Collaborating with Market Research Firms Choosing the Right Market Research Partner It is essential to select the right market research partner in order to obtain insights that are both accurate and applicable. Expertise, industry experience, and the capacity to provide insights that are in line with the company's goals should all be taken into account. Creating Effective Research Briefs Businesses should provide their market research partner with concise and in-depth research briefs to maximize the value of the research. A clearly defined brief assists in ensuring that the research is focused, pertinent, and in line with the company's objectives. 5. Studies of Cases: Product Launches That Work: The Importance of Market Research Market research is essential to the success of product launches. We are able to see the direct impact of market research on product development strategies by analyzing real-world examples. Market research companies offer valuable insights that can make or break a product launch, from comprehending consumer preferences to determining market gaps. ### Impact of Market Research on Product Launches Market research has a significant impact on product launches because it ensures that businesses know what their target audience wants and needs. Companies are able to effectively f

Knowing that an asteroid is going to hit the earth is not really useful if you are not planning to launch missiles to knock it out of the sky. You have to work massively overtime on the belief that innovation or massive change is going to happen.' — Tom Martin, former VP of marketing

The key to these successful launches was the involvement of the senior pastor. Whether pastors align their sermons with a purchased “campaign” or create their own, their leadership is significant in recruiting and connecting people into groups. Let’s

waned. Efforts to protect civilian life fell by the wayside and a fourth and final grim phase of nuclear reality settled over the United States. Soon grandiose plans gradually shrank to just a single, all-consuming governmental goal: protect the idea of a democratic leadership and preserve the National Command Authorities—that virtually never-ending succession line of officials authorized to launch the nation’s nuclear weapons. Rather than remake the entire society, the government would protect itself and let the rest of us die. That way, there was a chance that democracy could one day again blossom across

In the late 1990s, Parachute was the market leader with more than 50 per cent market share. Fresh from its success in taking market share in toothpaste away from Colgate using Pepsodent, HUL entered the coconut oil category to take on Marico. Dadiseth, the then chairman of HUL, had warned Mariwala to sell Marico to HUL or face dire consequences. Mariwala decided to take on the challenge. Even the capital markets believed that Marico stood no chance against the might of HUL which resulted in Marico’s price-to-earnings ratio dipping to as low as 7x, as against 13x during its listing in 1996. As part of its plans to take on Marico, HUL relaunched Nihar in 1998, acquired Cococare from Redcon and positioned both brands as price challengers to Parachute. In addition, HUL also increased advertising and promotion spends for its brands. In one quarter in FY2000, HUL’s advertising and promotional (A&P) spend on coconut oil alone was an amount which was almost equivalent to Marico’s full year A&P budget (around Rs 30 crore). As Milind Sarwate, former CFO of Marico, recalls, ‘Marico’s response was typically entrepreneurial and desi. We quickly realized that we have our key resource engine under threat. So, we re-prioritized and focused entirely on Parachute. We gave the project a war flavour. For example, the business conference on this issue saw Mariconians dressed as soldiers. The project was called operation Parachute ki Kasam. The leadership galvanized the whole team. It was exhilarating as the team realized the gravity of the situation and sprang into action. We were able to recover lost ground and turn the tables, so much so that eventually Marico acquired the aggressor brand, Nihar.’ Marico retaliated by relaunching Parachute: (a) with a new packaging; (b) with a new tag line highlighting its purity (Shuddhata ki Seal—or the seal of purity); (c) by widening its distribution; and (d) by launching an internal sales force initiative. Within twelve months, Parachute regained its lost share, thus limiting HUL’s growth. Despite several relaunches, Nihar failed against Parachute. Eventually, HUL dropped the brand Nihar off its power brand list before selling it off to Marico in 2006. Since then, Parachute has been the undisputed leader in the coconut oil category. This leadership has ensured that when one visits the hair oil section in a retail store, about 80 per cent of the shelves are occupied by Marico-branded hair oil.

US Military Was Prepared to Act in Benghazi Contrary to what the Obama administration has told the American people, the US military was poised and ready to respond immediately and forcefully against terrorists in Benghazi, Libya. That’s what we learned in December 2015 from an email exchange from then–Department of Defense Chief of Staff Jeremy Bash to State Department leadership immediately offering “forces that could move to Benghazi” during the terrorist attack on Benghazi. In an email sent to top Department of State officials, at 7:19 p.m. ET, only hours after the attack had begun, Bash says, “we have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi. They are spinning up as we speak.” The Obama administration redacted the details of the military forces available, oddly citing a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) exemption that allows the withholding of “deliberative process” information. The Obama administration and Clinton officials hid this compelling Benghazi email for years. The email makes readily apparent that the military was prepared to launch immediate assistance that could have made a difference, at least at the CIA annex. The fact that the Obama Administration withheld this email for so long only worsens the scandal of Benghazi.

A Role Model for Managers of Managers Gordon runs a technical group with seven managers reporting to him at a major telecommunications company. Now in his late thirties, Gordon was intensely interested in “getting ahead” early in his career but now is more interested in stability and doing meaningful work. It’s worth noting that Gordon has received some of the most positive 360 degree feedback reports from supervisors, direct reports, and peers that we’ve ever seen. This is not because Gordon is a “soft touch” or because he’s easy to work for. In fact, Gordon is extraordinarily demanding and sets high standards both for his team and for individual performance. His people, however, believe Gordon’s demands are fair and that he communicates what he wants clearly and quickly. Gordon is also very clear about the major responsibility of his job: to grow and develop managers. To do so, he provides honest feedback when people do well or poorly. In the latter instance, however, he provides feedback that is specific and constructive. Though his comments may sting at first, he doesn’t turn negative feedback into a personal attack. Gordon knows his people well and tailors his interactions with them to their particular needs and sensitivities. When Gordon talks about his people, you hear the pride in his words and tone of voice. He believes that one of his most significant accomplishments is that a number of his direct reports have been promoted and done well in their new jobs. In fact, people in other parts of the organization want to work for Gordon because he excels in producing future high-level managers and leaders. Gordon also delegates well, providing people with objectives and allowing them the freedom to achieve the objectives in their own ways. He’s also skilled at selection and spends a great deal of time on this issue. For personal reasons (he doesn’t want to relocate his family), Gordon may not advance much further in the organization. At the same time, he’s fulfilling his manager-of-managers role to the hilt, serving as a launching pad for the careers of first-time managers.

Doing so is not cheap—but at Amazon.com, instrumentation is a non-negotiable launch requirement for any new program.

An arrow can only be shot by pulling it backward. When you feel like you are being dragged back by difficulties, it means that you are torqueing up to launch forward.” – ANONYMOUS

What Do the Results of a Successful Tour of Duty Look Like for the Company? A successful mission objective delivers results for the company for either quantitative or qualitative goals, such as launching a new product line and generating a certain dollar amount in first-year revenues, or achieving thought leadership in a specific market category, as measured by the writings of industry analysts. At LinkedIn, for example, managers ask, “How will the company be transformed by this employee?” What Do the Results of

LEADERSHIP | Intuit’s CEO on Building a Design-Driven Company Brad Smith | 222 words Although 46 similar products were on the market when Intuit launched Quicken, in 1983, it immediately became the market leader in personal finance software and has held that position for three decades. That’s because Quicken was so well designed that using it is intuitive. But by the time Smith became CEO, in 2008, the company had become overly focused on adding incremental features that delivered ease of use but not delight. What was missing was an emotional connection with customers. He and his team set out to integrate design thinking into every part of Intuit. They changed the layout of the office, reduced the number of cubes, and added more collaboration spaces and places for impromptu work. They increased the number of designers by nearly 600% and now hold quarterly design conferences. They bring in people who have created exceptionally designed products, such as the Nest thermostat and the Kayak travel website, to share insights with Intuit employees. The company acquired one start-up, called Mint, and collaborates with another, called ZenPayroll, to improve customer experience. Although most people don’t think of financial software as a category driven by emotion or design, Smith writes, Intuit’s D4D (“design for delight”) program has paid off. For example, its SnapTax app, inspired by consumers’ migration to smartphones, led one user to write, “I want this app to have my babies.

In God’s Kingdom there are no overnight sensations or flash-in-the-pan successes. Anyone who wants to be used of God will experience hidden years in the backside of the desert. During that time the Lord is polishing, sharpening and preparing us to fit into His bow, so at the right time, like “a polished shaft” He can launch us into fruitful service. The invisible years are years of serving, studying, being faithful in another person’s ministry and doing the behind-the-scenes work. The Bible says, ‘God is not unjust; he will not forget your work’ (Hebrews 6:10 NIV 2011 Edition). Be patient; when the time is right He will bring forth the fruit He placed inside you.

One of the reasons you can’t learn everything you need to know about leadership from a seminar or a book is that leadership is, ultimately, an art.

The great leaders learn to rely on God to sustain them when nothing of this world can. And this, too, is the price—and the privilege—of leadership. Oh,

We still don’t have the full story on Benghazi, but thanks to the dogged efforts of Judicial Watch we know a lot more and are in a position to continue to crack open the Benghazi cover-up. Take the email that showed the military was prepared, indeed was in the process of launching timely assistance that could have made a difference, at least at the CIA annex where two Americans died. The Washington Examiner correctly noted that the email “casts doubt on previous testimony from high level officials, several of whom suggested there was never any kind of military unit that could have been in a position to mount a rescue mission during the hours-long attack on Benghazi.” All this goes to underscore the value of Judicial Watch’s independent watchdog activities and our leadership in forcing truth and accountability over the Benghazi scandal. The lies and inaction by President Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice (who is now Obama’s national security adviser) were monstrous. Rather than tell the truth, and risk political blowback for the Libya mess and the lack of security, the Obama administration abandoned those under fire and pretended that the attack had nothing to do with terrorism. Judicial Watch saw through the lies and began what has become the most nationally significant investigation ever by a non-governmental entity. Our Benghazi FOIA requests and subsequent lawsuits changed history. Our disclosure of White House records confirming that top political operatives at the White House concocted the talking points used by Susan Rice to mislead the American people in order save Obama’s reelection prospects rocked Washington. These smoking-gun documents embarrassed all of Congress and forced Speaker John Boehner to appoint the House Select Committee on Benghazi. And, as you’ll see, the pressure from our Benghazi litigation led to the disclosure of the Clinton email scandal, the historical ramifications of which we are now witnessing. If the American people had known the truth—that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, and other top administration officials knew that the Benghazi attack was an al-Qaeda terrorist attack from the get-go—and yet lied and covered this fact up—Mitt Romney might very well be president. Our Benghazi disclosures also show connections between the collapse in Libya and the ISIS war—and confirm that the US knew remarkable details about the transfer of arms from Benghazi to Syrian jihadists.

No leader operates in a vacuum, and aligning their activities with the greater organization is essential for success.

Efficient communication and decision making are key to great teams. Poor communication between team members defeats the purpose of having great people.

One of the really fantastic things about product management, but also one of the real stresses of it, is that it is a very broad role. You have to be able to be really good at strategy, be inspirational, and understand the long-term picture. At the same time, you have to be really good at the operational side and making things happen.

Driving the vision forward is the first area where management and leadership overlap. It is a leadership job in the sense of ownership and guidance and a management job in the sense that it requires a system to communicate and reinforce the path on a daily basis.

The success of a product manager — and subsequently that of their product — relies on every team member, from sales to development, understanding the vision and becoming at least a little bit passionate about it.

However, in most tech organizations, marketing has evolved to be more about owning the brand and customer acquisition, while product owns the value proposition and development.

Management is about doing things right; leadership is about doing the right things. Peter Drucker

Be stubborn on vision, flexible on details.

Ultimately, where the vision comes from is less important than ensuring that it is the correct one. As product management guru Rich Mironov says, “It’s not important to me who has the good idea, but it is my job to make sure it’s the best one, that it’s still validated, and that we have people who are going to pay for it. The process has to continually validate the vision. If we do that, I don’t care whose vision it is.

Product management might not be the right career path for a person that is averse to change.

A great vision should paint a picture of a brighter future for your customers. It’s not about you. It’s about them.

The product leader’s job is not to constantly manage or direct, but to lead their team by clearly articulating the common goal.

There is a wealth of research that underlies the value of diverse teams and shows that being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent, and harder-working,6 and has also been proven to make companies more innovative and successful.7

Applying design-thinking principles to one’s own life is both fun and satisfying.

There is nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency something that should not be done at all. Peter Drucker

Free yourself from the mental constraints of just giving options to people, and focus on the problem statement. Once you’ve got clarity on that, you can pass the responsibility of solving the problem onto your team.

leadership often comes with a lot of executive responsibility, but not always the authority afforded to executives.

Charles Du designed NASA’s first iPhone app, an award winner and a huge hit with more than 10 million downloads. But he also faced challenges from NASA brass who tried to water down his vision for the app. In a guest blog for Aha!, he laid out a basic principle: Maintaining your product vision is just as important as getting buy-in for that vision. After I got buy-in for the NASA app, a project manager was assigned to our team . . . a project manager is not the same as a product manager. Since my project manager didn’t understand the difference between the two roles and had seniority over me, we fought many battles. The vision of the app was user-driven. So, I validated my product hypothesis by talking to users and looking at our website metrics — a user-centered design approach. The project manager took a different approach. She saw this app as an opportunity to get more resources for our local center . . . She was advocating for politics-centered design that was divorced from any customer conversations. To me, this is a clear case of why product vision should drive everything you do as a product manager. I had clearly communicated why the vision for this app would achieve NASA’s high-level goals. This allowed senior leadership to see that I was working to help grow the whole organization. And it prevented politics from entering the picture. . . . We ended up launching a pure product designed 100 percent for our users — and it was a huge success.11

schoolchild. “See, it’s bead chain, just like yours,” a kid told a soldier in an ad promoting the program. Bert the Turtle taught a generation of schoolchildren to “duck and cover” when nuclear alarms sounded. But in the years ahead enthusiasm for such plans waned. Efforts to protect civilian life fell by the wayside and a fourth and final grim phase of nuclear reality settled over the United States. Soon grandiose plans gradually shrank to just a single, all-consuming governmental goal: protect the idea of a democratic leadership and preserve the National Command Authorities—that virtually never-ending succession line of officials authorized to launch the nation’s nuclear weapons.

Networking is a deposit in the bank of your future and in your startup. It won’t happen immediately, but if you do it right, you will continue to receive its dividends for years. I, for one, can network with the best of them! You can too.

As a business leader, you must also pay it forward and give it backward.

War bias comes about when the people who decide whether or not to launch a conflict have a set of risks and rewards different from the society they supposedly represent. In other words, when the leadership’s private incentives differ from the public interest. This isn’t true everywhere. In some societies, wealth, the means of production, and guns are widely distributed rather than concentrated in a few hands. Some peoples have also grown political rules and social norms that check elites, forcing them to seek the consent of the governed. These institutions and distributions of power help align the ruler’s interests with the public’s.

Whatever it did to Churchill, Gallipoli saw the birth of a nation, or rather two. By no remote consequence of the campaign, Mustafa Kemal would become Kemal Ataturk, while the rump of the Ottoman Empire became a Turkish national state under his leadership. And Australia would change also. The headstone of one Australian infantryman bears the words, chosen by his parents, ‘When day break, duty done for King and Country,’ but that was not how later generations of Australians would feel. ‘From a place you’ve never heard of, comes a story you’ll never forget’ was the quaint slogan advertising the 1981 Australian movie Gallipoli, which helped launch Mel Gibson’s career, but every Australian has heard of it.

On Feb. 26, the IAF launched airstrikes against what it said were terrorist camps in Pakistan. Pakistan retaliated with fighter planes dropping their payloads in Kashmir and, in an ensuing air battle, shot down an Indian MiG-21 warplane and captured its pilot. India claims the MiG-21 pilot shot down a more advanced Pakistan F-16 fighter aircraft before his own aircraft was downed — but Pakistan’s civilian and military leadership vehemently denied this.

JOHN LEHMAN, PRESIDENT REAGAN’S SECRETARY of the Navy during the 1980s, recently published a book (Oceans Ventured, W. W. Norton, 2018) discussing the maritime security strategy that he promoted while he was secretary. In his book (p. 96) he comments: “In early years of the strategy, while we modernized the fleet a certain amount of bluff was necessary.” Even for those not involved at the time, that specific note might prompt someone to ask three questions: •  Just how much bluff are we talking about? •  Was any sort of net assessment made before the maritime strategy was launched? • What really happened? Well, the maritime strategy was a whole box full of bluff. And what actually occurred makes for an interesting case study. It was a while ago, so it is necessary to set the stage. It also involves providing some background as the situation had developed over some time. Our own submarine force had become more and more secretive in their war against the Soviets. As a result, nonsubmariners

After a successful launch, entrepreneurs need to know how to switch from venture mode to corporation mode. This means learning control skills to protect resources, organization skills to build a more productive organization and achieve goals, and leadership skills to dominate the emerging industry.

Three Envelopes Construct.” The outgoing leader gives the new leader three envelopes—labeled “Envelope 1,” “Envelope 2,” and “Envelope 3”—and tells him to open them in order if he runs into trouble. The new leader launches in a blaze of glory. But after a month or so, troubles start landing on him. He opens the first envelope, and the note inside says: “Blame me.” So he goes around complaining about the mess he inherited. Things settle down, but a couple of months later he is back in trouble. He opens the second envelope: “Reorganize.” He immediately starts a major study to determine the kind of reorganization that would improve the situation. For months, the reorganization study moves all the boxes and people around and creates a new paradigm. Everyone is distracted. The new paradigm looks exciting, but nothing is solved and everyone is confused. The now no longer new commander is in dire straits and beside himself with worry. In desperation he opens the third envelope. The note says: “Prepare three envelopes.

The final question to ask before launching a new or revamped small group ministry is, “Who already does what we want to do well—and does it in a church we would go to if we lived in the area?

Most people cannot define “good” or “bad” leadership, but they know and feel it when they encounter it. My goal is to fully remove that smog and be an effective leader and a better person in all facets of my life. I remain an imperfect creature, but time and experience have allowed me to draw closer to a fuller understanding of effective leadership. Leaders, incidentally, understand and embrace that they, too, are imperfect creatures on a path toward self-improvement. Leaders selflessly employ an authentic approach that empowers and engages their colleagues, family, and friends in a manner that instills confidence and protects dignity. In fact, leaders often view this as a duty and a privilege.

Think about this. What would it take for you (or your staff) to move on from your current organization? Would you leave to feel valued, empowered, and largely left to your skills without being micromanaged but with the occasional “Hey, thanks for doing a great job!” from your manager? Organizational leaders: are you doing the little things to retain people? Are these attributes inherent and apparent in your organizational culture? If you are not asking yourselves these questions, you’d be wise to start doing so immediately. We should never underestimate how important it is for people to feel they are valued, respected, and heard. They want to know their voices matter and be met with a high level of responsiveness. All these needs rely on effective communication as the glue to bind them together.

Late that year, one of the soldiers stationed at the prison [Abu Ghraib] reported the abuses to his superiors and said that photos had been taken by the abusers. The commanders in Iraq immediately took action and took steps to launch an investigation. Soon after that the news reached Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who told President Bush in early January 2004 that incidents at Abu Ghraib were being looked into. It seems nobody told these senior leaders that these incidents were truly horrendous.

Without cultural change, we are hopeless to change existing results.5 Of all changes, cultural change is the most difficult. It is essentially changing the collective DNA of an entire group of people. To understand how to change culture, it is helpful to know how change works in general. Changing Church Culture Change is extremely difficult. One of the most vivid and striking examples of this painful reality is the inability of heart patients to change even when confronted with grim reality. Roughly six hundred thousand people have a heart bypass each year in the United States. These patients are told they must change. They must change their eating habits, must exercise, and quit smoking and drinking. If they do not, they will die. The case for change is so compelling that they are literally told, “Change or die.”6 Yet despite the clear instructions and painful reality, 90 percent of the patients do not change. Within two years of hearing such brutal facts, they remain the same. Change is that challenging for people. For the vast majority of patients, death is chosen over change. Yet leadership is often about change, about moving a group of people to a new future. Perhaps the most recognized leadership book on leading an organization to change is John Kotter’s Leading Change. And when ministry leaders speak or write about leadership, they often look to the wisdom found in the book of Nehemiah, as it chronicles Nehemiah’s leadership in rebuilding the wall around Jerusalem. Nehemiah led wide-scale change. Nehemiah never read Kotter’s book, and he led well without it. The Lord well equipped Nehemiah for the task of leading God’s people. But it is fascinating to see how Nehemiah’s actions mirror much of what Kotter has observed in leaders who successfully lead change. With a leadership development culture in mind, here are the eight steps for leading change, according to Kotter, and how one can see them in Nehemiah’s leadership. 1. Establish a sense of urgency. Leaders must create dissatisfaction with an ineffective status quo. They must help others develop a sense of angst over the brokenness around them. Nehemiah heard a negative report from Jerusalem, and it crushed him to the point of weeping, fasting, and prayer (Neh. 1:3–4). Sadly, the horrible situation in Jerusalem had become the status quo. The disgrace did not bother the people in the same way that it frustrated Nehemiah. After he arrived in Jerusalem, he walked around and observed the destruction. Before he launched the vision of rebuilding the wall, Nehemiah pointed out to the people that they were in trouble and ruins. He started with urgency, not vision. Without urgency, plans for change do not work. If you assess your culture and find deviant behaviors that reveal some inaccurate theological beliefs, you must create urgency by pointing these out. If you assess your culture and find a lack of leadership development, a sense of urgency must be created. Leadership development is an urgent matter because the mission the Lord has given us is so great.

The Creative Entrepreneur Mandala consists of four pathways that will help you design a viable creative business. Pathway 1: Heart and Meaning looks at how to follow your heart’s desire and creative dreams, while lessening the potential for heartbreak. Pathway 2: Gifts and Flow reveals how uncovering and using your unique gifts contributes to flow, or less-effortful accomplishment. Pathway 3: Value and Profitability is about creating a customer-centric business, and how to create and deliver value that people will pay for. Pathway 4: Tools and Skills presents the vital necessity of developing your business skills and leadership capacities (which few entrepreneurs are willing to do) to achieve the results you want in areas 1 through 3. Each of these four essentials is looked at as an individual pathway that, when put together, form a mandala, or flower shape. The goal is to find the overlapping center of the four pathways, which represents the “sweet spot” of your business—the absolutely unique value you offer to the marketplace that is aligned with your innermost aspirations and ideals. The mandala provides a template for working with the four pathways of the business in a visual manner. Awareness of and continual refinement of all four pathways is crucial for launching and sustaining the kind of enterprise that works for creative individuals. When even one pathway is missing, the outcome we get from our efforts is different—less—than if all four are used together. This process of refinement is meant to be continual, reflecting the dynamic nature of the marketplace and also the changing nature of our own goals and plans. Don’t be discouraged if “getting” all four pathways seems daunting at first. The mandala is a tool for reflection and critical thinking, which requires time and space to evolve. It is something to work with at regular strategic planning meetings, monthly, quarterly, and annually.

Teams often get launched in a vacuum, with little or no training or support, no changes in the design of their work, and no new systems like e-mail to help communication between teams. Frustrations mount, and people wind up in endless meetings trying to figure out why they are a team and what they are expected to do.

After Netanyahu was defeated in the 1999 election, his more liberal successor, Ehud Barak, made efforts to establish a broader peace in the Middle East, including outlining a two-state solution that went further than any previous Israeli proposal. Arafat demanded more concessions, however, and talks collapsed in recrimination. Meanwhile, one day in September 2000, Likud party leader Ariel Sharon led a group of Israeli legislators on a deliberately provocative and highly publicized visit to one of Islam’s holiest sites, Jerusalem’s Temple Mount. It was a stunt designed to assert Israel’s claim over the wider territory, one that challenged the leadership of Ehud Barak and enraged Arabs near and far. Four months later, Sharon became Israel’s next prime minister, governing throughout what became known as the Second Intifada: four years of violence between the two sides, marked by tear gas and rubber bullets directed at stone-throwing protesters; Palestinian suicide bombs detonated outside an Israeli nightclub and in buses carrying senior citizens and schoolchildren; deadly IDF retaliatory raids and the indiscriminate arrest of thousands of Palestinians; and Hamas rockets launched from Gaza into Israeli border towns, answered by U.S.-supplied Israeli Apache helicopters leveling entire neighborhoods. Approximately a thousand Israelis and three thousand Palestinians died during this period—including scores of children—and by the time the violence subsided, in 2005, the prospects for resolving the underlying conflict had fundamentally changed. The Bush administration’s focus on Iraq, Afghanistan, and the War on Terror left it little bandwidth to worry about Middle East peace, and while Bush remained officially supportive of a two-state solution, he was reluctant to press Sharon on the issue. Publicly, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states continued to offer support to the Palestinian cause, but they were increasingly more concerned with limiting Iranian influence and rooting out extremist threats to their own regimes.

You think it was a great answer, right?” and started to move on. I jumped on it and did something I might never have done as a younger person—especially to a president of the United States. Something I’d never seen anyone else do around Trump in the limited number of interactions I’d had with him. I can’t remember if it was midsentence or in a brief pause before he launched into the next set of assertions to which we were all supposed to agree, but I interrupted his monologue. “The first part of your answer was fine, Mr. President,” I said, as he took a breath and looked at me with a blank expression. “But not the second part. We aren’t the kind of killers that Putin is.