Acumen Presents: Al Pittampalli on Embracing Persuadability
What you'll learn
- Understand why persuadability—or the willingness to change one’s mind in the face of evidence—is critical for modern leaders
- Describe the 3 distinct advantages persuadable leaders possess
- Apply 5 specific “power practices” to become more persuadable in your own work and life
- Build tiny habits that lead you to be a more agile and accurate decision maker
- Learn why persuadability can be a critical element of social change
Requirements
- There are no prerequisites
Description
As a leader, changing your mind has always been perceived as a weakness. Not anymore. In a world that’s changing faster than ever, successful leaders realize that a genuine willingness to change their own minds is the ultimate competitive advantage. Today’s leaders need to be persuadable.
In this course, business consultant Al Pittampalli will draw on evidence from social science and cognitive psychology to show you how humility and radical open-mindedness can become powerful leadership assets. You’ll learn why the traditional leadership paradigm that prioritizes confidence, consistency and conviction might no longer work in today’s fast-moving world.
Having worked for organizations ranging from NASA to Hertz to IBM, Al has hands-on experience coaching leaders to become more persuadable. In this course, he’ll teach you about 3 clear advantages that persuadable leaders possess. Then he’ll walk you through 5 specific “power practices” that you can adopt in your own daily life and work to become a more agile, accurate and growth-minded leader. Finally, you’ll learn how persuadability is a critical element of social change. He’ll share examples of how a willingness to change one’s mind has been an essential part of social movements ranging from gay marriage to civil rights to women’s rights to Indian independence. Distilling cutting edge research, Al will give you actionable advice to become a more results-oriented leader who moves quickly to let the best ideas prevail.
Who this course is for:
- You want to learn a new approach to leadership
- You want to become an agile, open-minded, and data-driven decision maker
Instructors
- 4.4 Instructor Rating
- 14,607 Reviews
- 84,785 Students
- 16 Courses
Acumen is changing the way the world tackles poverty by investing in companies, leaders and ideas. We invest patient capital in businesses whose products and services are enabling the poor to transform their lives. Founded by Jacqueline Novogratz in 2001, Acumen has invested more than $110 million in 102 companies across Africa, Latin America, South Asia and the United States. We are also developing a global community of emerging leaders with the knowledge, skills and determination to create a more inclusive world. In 2015, Acumen was named one of Fast Company's Top 10 Most Innovative Not-for-Profit Companies.
Acumen Academy is the world’s school for social change. Our mission is to unleash a new generation of social innovators and leaders with the determination and grit to build a more just, inclusive and sustainable world. Blending the best of online and offline learning, we offer anyone, anywhere access to the practical tools, practices, resources and supportive community they need to achieve positive social change. With 700 Fellows and 500,000 course takers in 193 countries, the Acumen Academy community represents a new generation of social innovators and leaders committed to doing what’s right in a world that loves easy.
- 4.5 Instructor Rating
- 136 Reviews
- 740 Students
- 1 Course
Al Pittampalli is the author of two books that combine research and storytelling to help individuals and organizations adapt to a fast changing world.
His latest, Persuadable: How Great Leaders Change Their Minds to Change the World will be published by HarperBusiness in early 2016. There are an astounding number of books that teach you how to persuade others. But as a society we’re already fairly persuasive; what we’re not is persuadable—we lack the genuine willingness to change our own minds. Why? For one, changing our minds is often perceived as a weakness in our culture. In this book, Al uses decades of social science to reveal it as an incontrovertible strength. Because not only is being persuadable the right thing to do, it’s the smart thing to do—a powerful advantage in both business and life.
His first book, Read This Before Our Next Meeting: The Modern Meeting Standard for Successful Organizations, not only explains what’s wrong with “the meeting,” and meeting culture, but suggests how to make meetings more effective, efficient, and worthy of attending. Most importantly it assesses when it’s necessary to skip the meeting and get right to work by answering a critical question: What exactly is the purpose of the modern meeting? Now out in over 100K copies, it was the most popular kindle book in the world during the week of its release. The book was one of only 13 titles published by Seth Godin's award winning imprint, The Domino Project (Powered by Amazon). Todd Sattersen, former president of 800-CEO-READ and author of The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, named Read This Before Our Next Meeting the #4 best business book of 2011. It’s been translated into five different languages.
Al started his career as an IT consultant for Ernst & Young where he advised Fortune 500 organizations all over the country. This is where he first realized meeting mediocrity and ingrained stubbornness were epidemics. Now on his own, Al helps organizations like NASA, Hewlett Packard, Abbot Labs, transform their organizational cultures. He graduated from Stern School of Business with a bachelor’s degree in finance and currently lives in New York City.