“I didn’t do well in the event. I came in fourth and to this day, I don’t know what happened except to say I couldn’t find the zone. I didn’t yet understand that racing wasn’t just about being fast, it was also about strategizing and quieting the mind. I was used to running alone, my only company at times just cows and sheep and goats. I was used to running in South Africa. I couldn’t yet control my nerves. I resolved to learn and never lose again.

And immediately I regretted it.

I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!

I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education. - D.H. Lawrence

Then I made two other mistakes. One was that I didn’t fully appreciate the importance of simply provisioning traditional institutional reassurance. By asking and challenging everything, you create a lot of uncertainty, and that uncertainty can be debilitating to the ongoing functioning of the organization. I failed to appreciate that if you’re going to be questioning everybody and challenging everybody, you have to do a lot of reassuring in return. I didn’t say, ‘Isn’t Harvard great?’ If I had said that, it would have been much more reassuring.” - Lawrence Summers.

The second mistake I’d made was more serious. I’d wanted to make sure every idea we had was communicated properly, so I’d insisted the team learn a spiel. I’d made them performers, ruling out any possibility of a real, quality conversation between them and the guests. Of course the experience had felt inauthentic to Wells; there had been no room for Natasha to connect with him. I had taken away her ability to be herself at the table.

My attempts to mold him failed, and I felt increasingly frustrated. He thought I’d fire him. Fortunately, for him and me, I began to grasp that he had not failed me; rather, I had failed him by putting him in a role out of frame with his encodings. Furthermore, I felt somewhat responsible for his future; I did not want to see this wonderful young man start his professional life getting fired. So, I began making a series of iterative steps, testing him with different tasks that drew upon what I sensed to be his intellectual gifts, and he showed signs of flourishing.