You probably have heard about this Orwellian evil social score that the Chinese government devised to spy on the wrongdoings of its people and to even further restrict individual freedom in the Middle Kingdom.

I came across this wonderful and thoughtful podcast (˜45min) that dissects the social score from a Chinese perspective and then decomposes and translates it into a Western culture context. It ressonates well with my view and I can very much recommend it.

Why questions are powerful. They ask for the motivation behind people’s actions. Why didn’t you speak up in the meeting? Why did you tell him?
Why questions have always been my favorite, because they let you get to the bottom of things. In almost all cases though, they tend to have an accusatory tone, pushing the other person into a defensive mode.

Honestly, WeWork is the biggest fraud in start-up history.

Once a gloried $47Bn unicorn darling, WeWork almost became bankrupt after a botched IPO and has just received a $6.5Bn lifeline of its biggest shareholder SoftBank for a total controlling stake of 80%. It’s still losing $1 for each $1 generated in revenue and its business model is still risky and flawed, while its dubious, spiritual ex-CEO Adam Neumann walks away with a total exit package of $1.7B(!) from SoftBank. Ironically, WeWork’s employees on the other hand couldn’t be laid off last week, because the company was too broke to pay severance packages.

Can we pause here for a second…What is going on in the world?

It is easy to convince people you like of something you fundamentally believe in (you, your idea, your thought, your strategy).

The reality of course is, that we find ourselves more in situations where we need to influence people that we don’t click with about plans we don’t 100% believe in. And that’s the real struggle.

Perhaps you had those grueling lunches with people before where you needed to “talk straight” with them, because you really didn’t get along, or because the person wasn’t doing a good job, or somehow you both had attitude problems towards each other. Often times, these conversations have sobering outcomes.