Page 17 - The New Articulate Executive_ Look, Act and Sound Like a Leader

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BECOMING A PLAYER

f you run a business or want to lead any organization and can’t
Iplay the game, you are competing with a handicap. Not knowing
how to play is simply a liability.
Few business leaders play the game better than Steve Jobs, Apple
Computer CEO and Fortune magazine’s CEO of the decade. Steve
Jobs can inspire employees, fi re up investors, sell his ideas to the
media, enlist allies, and forge partnerships behind closed doors. He
is so skilled, in fact, that his 2005 commencement address to the
graduating class of Stanford University resonated with an entire
generation of Americans, and to this day it is remembered as one of
the greatest commencement addresses of all time.
It was a lesson in life, a morality tale about discovery, passion,
vision, mortality, redemption, and the meaning of existence—all
revealed through three simple stories. It wasn’t long before almost
everybody in that audience began to realize they were sharing in a
magical experience the likes of which they had never heard before.
At the end, Jobs said simply: “Stay hungry. Stay foolish,” and the
crowd went wild with a burst of cheering and applause that just
wouldn’t quit. And in a sense, it never did. Today, the applause rolls
on as people the world over continue to talk about Steve Jobs’
“famous commencement speech.”

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