Finnish president Alexander Stubb on the power of listening in leadership | ReThinking

1. 0:00 – 0:24

   Authenticity in politics: being genuine and earning trust

   1. ASAlexander Stubb0:00

      I do believe that in politics you have to be yourself, you have to be genuine. And I actually think that in politics, especially in politics, you get pretty much what you deserve. Of course, this is not a universal theory, as we know, but more or less the ones who are straightforward get up to the top. [upbeat music]

2. 0:24 – 1:28

   Golf diplomacy: how a scholarship led to a round with a U.S. president

   1. AGAdam Grant0:24

      I have a lot I want to talk to you about today, especially because you did some major rethinking to land in the current office that you hold. But before we go there, I feel like we have to start with golf, because that was what brought you to the US, and I'd love to hear a little bit of the backstory on that, particularly because you were told by your dad that even if you didn't become a professional golfer, the skills would come in handy.

   2. ASAlexander Stubb0:47

      Yeah, indeed, my dad had said to me when I was young that, you know, even if you don't become professional, it's gonna come handy to you. And he probably meant business, but I, I never knew that I would end up on a golf course with the President of the United States.

   3. AGAdam Grant1:00

      Tell me how that happened.

   4. ASAlexander Stubb1:00

      I mean, it was kind of matchmaking to a certain extent. So, uh, Lindsey Graham, who is a senator in South Carolina, he, uh, was quite excited about the fact that the president of Finland, a new NATO country, has, uh, studied at Furman in South Carolina. And he knew that I was there on a little golf scholarship, and he sort of said, "Why don't we go and play with the President?" I said, "Well, [laughs] you know, if you insist, sure." So we ended up playing a round of golf in Florida, which was quite pleasant.

3. 1:28 – 2:58

   What golf reveals about leaders: personality under pressure and teamwork dynamics

   1. AGAdam Grant1:28

      Very, very different context to build a relationship than if you're sitting in the White House. What was that like?

   2. ASAlexander Stubb1:33

      Well, it's, you know, anytime you spend the better part of seven hours with someone, so breakfast, then three, four hours on the course, and then lunch, you get to know a person. And, and anyone who plays golf knows that, you know, you play one or two holes with a person, and that reveals the personality more than any meeting room or even quality time at a dinner party. Because you're kind of struggling, uh, with your own game, uh, how people react to a good shot, a bad shot, you know, how they behave. And, and so it was, it was quite an opening experience, and a- as I said, a really pleasant one.

   3. AGAdam Grant2:07

      I can imagine being a little bit nervous in that situation because on the one hand, you don't want to be terrible. On the other hand, do you want to beat the leader of the free world? Do you want to potentially bruise his ego? How did you approach that?

   4. ASAlexander Stubb2:20

      Well, I mean, t- two points on this. First, when you have a few hundred thousand repetitions in your body, there's no need to be nervous. You know that as a diver, uh, as well. You know, you can do a backflip or whatever on command even after a few years. The second issue, it was so very easy. We are on the same team. So, so, [laughs] you know, we're playing best ball, so if I made a good score, the President would be happy. If he scored well, he'd be happy. So it was really win-win. And on top of that, we had, you know, legendary Gary Player on our team as well. And, uh, as things would happen, we did win the country club tournament, so that was fun.

4. 2:58 – 3:48

   Private persona vs. media persona: Stubb’s impressions of Trump on the course

   1. AGAdam Grant2:58

      Congratulations. What did you see about President Trump that probably most Americans can't, having not golfed with him?

   2. ASAlexander Stubb3:05

      Well, I mean, you know, again, I, I think all of us have, um, we have a media persona, and then we have a private persona, and those two are very often different with many people, uh, also with, with the President. So I, to be honest, not only is he a good golfer, but he's, he's a lot of fun to play with. Uh, you know, there are a lot of jokes. Doesn't get flustered. Uh, you know, bad shot, good shot, same type of reaction. So it was unusually good, uh, because I've seen a lot of my very good friends get completely het up about golf and going bananas, but there was none of that with the President of the US.

   3. AGAdam Grant3:40

      Fascinating and a little surprising to me, frankly.

   4. ASAlexander Stubb3:43

      [laughs] As I told you, media persona is different from private persona.

5. 3:48 – 5:53

   Networking as foreign policy: information as power for a small country

   1. AGAdam Grant3:48

      You've had, obviously, dealings with the President since then. I would love to hear a little bit about how has foreign policy been shaped by a golf game?

   2. ASAlexander Stubb3:57

      Well, y- you can't make a direct, you know, correlation or causality there, but what quite often happens in these kinds of a setting is that you establish a relationship, and then it becomes a network. So, you know, it can be a good or a bad relationship. Uh, I would argue that I have a good relationship with the President of the United States, to the point where we don't agree on everything, obviously, so we can respectfully, uh, disagree, which is a good thing. But what happens then is suddenly, if you spend that much time with the President of the US, other leaders get interested because they start privately to ask exactly the same questions. And then, you know, I come from a small country, so I don't have much power, but for me, information is power. So if I can then start, you know, informing my colleagues about what I think that the US might be doing, or then I can inform what my colleagues might be doing, give that info to the US, or I can be a matchmaker between, say, the president of Ukraine and the President of the US, that, that's then what happens through networking. It's very much a two-way street. And you can lose that very quickly. You know, I mean, i- if, if you don't sort of gather information, if you're not able to share information, then you're a little bit out of the game. So you have to, you have to stay active all the time, and that's what I try to do. Sometimes it goes well. At other times there can be a bit of an ebb. But, you know, Adam, I, I, I'm, I'm adamant about this. I don't want to inflate my own role with the President of the United States. I mean, it's good to have a relationship, but if he picks up one out of 10 ideas, you know, I should feel lucky. So he's very much a man of his own mind, as, as everyone would know by now.

   3. AGAdam Grant5:37

      So, so we've seen. Has this made you rethink how leaders interact? 'Cause it seems like a lot of the, the formality of diplomacy meetings and even, you know, when you go to a major conference, you could strip that away really quickly by playing sports together, and I, I wonder why we don't do this more often.

6. 5:53 – 8:00

   How leaders open up: emotional intelligence, reading the room, and humanizing politics

   1. ASAlexander Stubb5:53

      Well, actually- Many of us go jogging. That, that's one of the things that we do. You know, I remember being at a peace conference on Ukraine in Switzerland, and I think we were about four or five leaders went up in the mountains for a little hike and a jog. But it hasn't made me rethink about it, because I have always felt that diplomacy is really about two things. One is your traditional state-to-state relations, which are about history, culture, values, interests, and quite often geography. So, do you sort of click, or do you have common interests and values to work together? And then the other side is the personal one. The personal one, uh, you know, which is really about your capacity to communicate with someone. It's about your emotional intelligence. It's really about behavioral psychology. If [laughs] ... And the idea is that you kind of have to scrape the surface, because all of us in these types of positions, we have a, a surface, and then it's a question of, are you able, through conversation, to open that person up? And then suddenly, if that person opens up, in a private setting or in a small meeting, he or she will give you much more information than you would get otherwise. So it, it's really about building trust.

   2. AGAdam Grant7:05

      When you, when you talk behavioral psychology, do you have go-to questions that you ask other leaders to get them to open up?

   3. ASAlexander Stubb7:11

      No. I, I, I try to read the room. Quite often it can be a, a link to a hobby or I've read something that they have said, so that kind of opens up. But I, I, I allow the conversation to go into a flow. So today, for instance, when we're recording this podcast, uh, it's a great day because Finland just won the world championships in ice hockey in Switzerland. So I've been getting, you know, a lot of messages from colleagues, congratulations. So it's these kinds of small things. So it, it's almost like, well, it's not almost, it is normal human interaction, but we just have this sort of image of political leaders being somehow extremely different from your bog standard Joe Sixpack, but the truth is that we're not.

   4. AGAdam Grant7:55

      Well, congrats on the, the hockey victory.

   5. ASAlexander Stubb7:58

      [laughs] I was fishing for that, Adam. [laughs]

7. 8:00 – 10:11

   Training, energy, and confidence: exercise as a presidential performance tool

   1. AGAdam Grant8:00

      So I, I wanna talk a little bit about the, the effect of sports on your work in a different way, which is you're an avid Ironman athlete. Are you still training?

   2. ASAlexander Stubb8:09

      Uh, I mean, Ironman athlete always sounds a little bit inflated. Uh, I have a philosophy, and the philosophy is that one hour of exercise gives you two more hours of energy for each day. But the reverse is true. If I overtrain, so say, two hours a day, it'll take one hour of energy away. So I'm not anymore what you would call an avid Ironman triathlete. I have done a few Ironmen. I like triathlons, so yes, when I do my daily exercises, I swim, bike, and run, depending a little bit on the day. So I try to get in my training, but, but it, it's much less than what it used to be because of the constraints of time, but also because all we're trying to do now with my coaches and doctors is to maximize my energy levels.

   3. AGAdam Grant8:53

      One of the, the research findings I really liked recently, it was a series of studies about morning workouts and why they might be good for us, and you know, I, I always thought about it from an energy perspective. What I hadn't seen coming was the finding that when you work out in the morning, it actually boosts your confidence through the workday because the, just the simple experience of, "Okay, I navigated that challenge, I overcame that hurdle," reminds you, "Hey, like [laughs] I can, I can do the same thing in my job." And I, I'm curious about whether you've experienced that, and, and whether, like, on days where you might miss a mor- a morning workout or not, not have a good workout, you actually see your performance as a, as a president suffer.

   4. ASAlexander Stubb9:30

      I would say yes. Um, I do feel that, you know, my spine is a little bit straighter if I train in the morning. And, and sometimes, depending a little bit on the travel regime and others, we, we try to do what we call quick, short intervals, because that is what sort of increases your testosterone level very quickly, uh, but doesn't sort of exhaust you as probably longer intervals do. So I, I, I do believe in the confidence. And some- You know, I'm grumpy if I don't train, and my team knows it. [laughs]

   5. AGAdam Grant10:00

      You know, Alex, I have to tell you, I don't think that world leaders need more testosterone.

   6. ASAlexander Stubb10:05

      I, I think you're right. Right now there are a few that have way too many, even without training. [laughs] I don't know what they do to get them.

8. 10:11 – 12:54

   Leaving and returning to politics: from reluctant PM to NATO-era presidency

   1. AGAdam Grant10:11

      Exactly. So let, let's talk about your big rethinking decision. You, you ended up becoming prime minister, I think, in, in ways that were probably surprising to a lot of people. We don't see a lot of political scientists run for office, let alone win. And then [laughs] I, I, I have a vivid memory of you saying, after you finished that role, "I will never be in politics again. I am done with that." So why did you go in the first place, and why are you back now?

   2. ASAlexander Stubb10:37

      Okay, so I, I probably have to rewind a little bit, because I wanted to be a sportsman, then I wanted to be an academic, and then I was a civil servant. And when I was a civil servant, I fe- felt a little bit constrained. I never wanted to do domestic politics, and I wanted to do European politics. But that was it. But then one thing led to another, and I was asked to become, uh, foreign minister in 2008, and again, my mentality was, "I just wanna do foreign policy." So I was trade and Europe minister, foreign minister, total six years. And then I was supposed to go to Brussels to become commissioner, but my predecessor, as prime minister and party chairman, said he's gonna do it, so there wasn't much I could do. And my first reaction was, "Well, I'm not gonna run for party chairman or, or prime minister, because that's not my thing." But then, uh, you know, a week's worth of reflection, I did some rethinking, and against all odds, because I came from outside of politics, I won. Probably with the wisdom of hindsight, not only was it a difficult period, but it wasn't my thing. So my sort of via dolorosa, or my two difficult years in life, were from 2014 to 2016 when I was PM, finance minister, and, and, and party chairman, and things were not going that well. So in 2016 when I was relieved of my duties, uh, by my good friend, who is now prime minister, who challenged me for a leadership challenge, I felt very relieved. And I thought, "Okay, I went to banking, I did academia, and the only thing that brought me back to politics was Russia's, uh, war of aggression in Ukraine," because that, uh, made a lifelong dream of mine come true, that Finland join NATO. And then at home with my wife and family, we discussed, "Should we go for one more round?" And, and sure enough, we did, and, and here I am, a little bit over two years into, uh, the mandate.

   3. AGAdam Grant12:24

      And you haven't rethought it yet?

   4. ASAlexander Stubb12:25

      No. I, I, to be honest, I know world politics is challenging. It's tough. But You know, I'm enjoying every day of this job. I, I feel very privileged to serve. Uh, I love what I'm doing. It's, it's, it's stuff that I've been either studying or doing for over 30 years, ever since, you know, I took my first international relations class at Furman University in 1990. So I, I, I, I love every day of this job, as, as difficult as it can sometimes be.

9. 12:54 – 14:33

   Leading like a scientist: frameworks, testing ideas, and permission to fail

   1. AGAdam Grant12:54

      How does your training as a political scientist affect the way that you lead?

   2. ASAlexander Stubb12:58

      Oh, big, big time, I think. You know me personally well enough to, to know that there is a, a, a scientist in me, albeit a social scientist. First of all, I, I do two things at least. One is I create these frameworks in my head. So I try to read a lot, you know, I write a lot, and that helps me to conceptualize things. So I wrote a book called The Triangle of Power: Rebalancing the New World Order when I was in academia, and that has helped me to frame my, my thinking. The second thing is that I, I believe in the way in which science is structured, and that allows me also to accept failure i- in the sense that I test ideas, and then some of the ideas fly, others don't. Of course, I have to avoid [laughs] major failure because, you know, it's about war and peace, so we're not, you know, testing anything of that. But when I lead to my team, I always say they have to be the guys who basically contain me. So if I come up with, you know, five ideas, I'm happy for them to shoot down four and say o- maybe on one. And then we test these concepts, and then sometimes they work. And also in terms of leadership, I allow for a lot of failure. So, you know, my, my nucleus team is, is, is seven members in the cabinet, plus then, you know, a few others, assistants and helping out. And I always tell them that if we succeed, it's thanks to you. If we fail, I take the blame. And, and that for me comes from academia and this sort of slightly scientific way of thinking.

10. 14:33 – 15:57

    Decision-making in practice: strategic communication, timing, and the power of numbers

    1. AGAdam Grant14:33

       I, I'd just love to, to give our listeners a, a vivid view of, you know, when you're testing ideas and trying to figure out what will work and what won't. Is there a, is there an anecdote or an illustration you could give us to bring that to life?

    2. ASAlexander Stubb14:45

       Sometimes it's about communication, you know, what do we say or what do we not say, uh, when I travel, when I give press conferences, et cetera, et cetera. You know, for instance, if I have information that, uh, Ukraine is winning on the battlefield, but we know that this information, you know, could change next week. So we pose the question, should we come out with this now and say that in the past five months, Ukraine, uh, has been able to decapacitate 35,000 Russian soldiers per month, and the Russians are only able to, uh, recruit 27,000. Therefore, mathematically, statistically, we see that Ukraine has an edge, and the question is, do we do it or not, and when do we do it? So these are the types of questions that we do. Then I'm also quite scientific. I want to use a lot of numbers in my speeches and also in my interviews because they stick with people. So a lot of my team has to do probably more academic kind of research, uh, before we come up with a, with a thesis or a hypothesis, and it has helped, I think, me personally, hopefully also my, my communication.

11. 15:57 – 17:23

    President vs. prime minister: team alignment, institutional support, and public expectations

    1. AGAdam Grant15:57

       How are you leading differently this time with the, the benefit of the, the two years that you did originally as PM?

    2. ASAlexander Stubb16:03

       First of all, the team is smaller, but the big difference is that everyone works in one direction. So the first meeting I had with my aide-de-camp, so I have three military officers who basically, uh, take care that I survive, and the first thing my first aide-de-camp said, "Mr. President, we're here to protect you as an institution." So it's a team, whereas if you are a prime minister in a coalition government, or if you are a party chairman with some conservatives, some liberals, some centrists, there's always gonna be intrigue. The party doesn't work as a team. The government doesn't work as a team. And on top of that, you're fighting an opposition and probably a media that, in the right way, works against you because of media freedom. The other big difference is that when you're prime minister, a majority of the population wants you to fail for ideological reasons, whereas as president, I'm in charge of foreign policy and I'm the commander in chief. And for us, foreign policy with a border of 830 miles with Russia is existential, so everyone wants the president to succeed. And, and I, I feel very much more confident as, as president than I was as prime minister because that was about domestic politics, which wasn't my strength.

12. 17:23 – 19:42

    Understanding Putin: identity narratives, nationalism, and limits of influence

    1. AGAdam Grant17:23

       You mentioned the, the extensive border that you share with Russia. You've spent time up close with Vladimir Putin, and you've obviously spent a lot of time trying to understand his psychology. I'd love to hear you just make sense of how do you influence, persuade, negotiate with somebody who is very difficult, first of all, to move? And secondly, to reason with

    2. ASAlexander Stubb17:45

       Well, I mean, first of all, I, I probably have to qualify. So when I have met Putin, I was usually a minister in a delegation with the then president or then prime minister. So I was a backbencher, uh, and it didn't happen, you know, very often. I've only met him a handful of times. I know Sergey Lavrov much better, who is the foreign minister of, of Russia. So I, I think the first thing you have to understand is never underestimate someone like Vladimir Putin or someone like Sergey Lavrov. They're extremely intelligent, well-read, uh, human beings. Secondly, understand that they are strong Russian nationalists, and we're all prisoners of our own identity, the narratives of history that we have grown up with. And the narrative of history for someone like Vladimir Putin, who is former KGB, comes not only from the Cold War, so very much a zero-sum ideological thinking, but it's also a historical perspective, where he sees Russia as a major power and as an empire. That's why he talks about the biggest travesty in recent history being the dismantling of the Soviet Union. That's why he hails someone like Stalin, who after all was a mass murderer, killing millions of people, uh, of his own and, uh, around the world. So his philosophy is very much what we call Russkiy Mir, which is one Russia, which means basically Russia's borders of the 1800s when it was a great power. And that means that there is one Russia, one language, one, uh, religion, and one leader. And then when you understand that, you can try to have an impact or an influence. But as we can see, you know, Vladimir Putin doesn't exactly take advice from anyone, not from the [laughs] president of Finland, let alone from the President of the United States.

13. 19:42 – 25:46

    Listening, humility, and Nordic culture: Janteloven, Finnish identity, and happiness

    1. AGAdam Grant19:42

       Well, I think this, this relates to one of my big takeaways from The Triangle of Power, which is you make a case that listening is an underrated leadership skill.

    2. ASAlexander Stubb19:50

       Yeah, it's true. Uh, I think sometimes we have leaders who simply don't listen. I try to go into any meeting, sometimes succeeding, at other times not, to learn something, learn something from that person. There's a reason why I travel a lot. So in the first two years, I've done 75 travels abroad, 25 in Finland. I was just in Jordan meeting the King of Jordan. I was in Egypt meeting the president of Egypt. I was in Canada meeting the prime minister of Canada, et cetera, et cetera. So I, I try to sort of soak in information and listen to what they have to say. And when we prepare for these meetings with my team, like we had today with the president of Slovenia, I wanted to understand the dynamics of countries such as, uh, you know, Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Albania, Montenegro, uh, North Macedonia. So I, I try to listen as much as I possibly can. But of course, sometimes you fail. You know, people in my line of work are not usually very shy. [laughs] Sometimes they are pretty bad listeners, including myself, but I, I try to work at it all the time.

    3. AGAdam Grant21:02

       This makes me wonder a little bit about the Nordic tendency toward, uh, I've, I've heard it described as Janteloven.

    4. ASAlexander Stubb21:08

       Janteloven. Okay, I don't know that word.

    5. AGAdam Grant21:11

       Oh, well, okay. So I'm gonna try to teach you something about your world.

    6. ASAlexander Stubb21:14

       Very good.

    7. AGAdam Grant21:15

       Are you ready for this?

    8. ASAlexander Stubb21:15

       So there you go. I'm listening.

    9. AGAdam Grant21:16

       This is, uh, this is like, this is Nordsplaining. Here we go.

    10. ASAlexander Stubb21:19

        But it sounds so Icelandic.

    11. AGAdam Grant21:21

        I think it's originally Danish maybe, but the, the basic concept is, like, you follow the law of Jante, and one of the core laws is you have to remember you're no better than anybody else. It's, it's supposed to be a, a Nordic code that enforces humility or at least cultivates and nurtures humility. And it's such an interesting thing to me to think about. On the one hand, we, we know the value of humility in leadership. It reminds you that you don't know everything. You have lots to learn from the other people around you. At the same time, [laughs] politics is not a, a sphere of life that we associate much with humility, and I, I'd just love to hear a little bit about how you, you walk that tightrope.

    12. ASAlexander Stubb21:59

        Sure. Well, first of all, actually, if, if you look at the five Nordics, so Iceland, uh, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and Finland, you would probably make an argument that the most understated and humble, uh, and modest are the Finns. It's because we are inherently-

    13. AGAdam Grant22:16

        He says with pride

    14. ASAlexander Stubb22:17

        He says with pride. And I, I, you know, a lot of my Finnish compatriots, they say, "Alex, you know, you [laughs] you don't resemble a Finn at all." But they, they just laugh at it. But the bottom line is that we are actually inherently quite shy. We, we speak a very different language, a language which is expressive when you speak it to your kin, uh, and your countrymen, but doesn't translate well into, to, to other languages. So we do have that humbleness and modesty that, that is, is very inherent. But then if you look at the Icelanders, probably same thing, you know, and the Norwegians. And the reason for all of this is that we actually gained our political independence quite late, uh, you know, uh, Norway from Sweden, Iceland from Denmark, Finland from Russia. So, you know, there, there is this sort of modesty. So we haven't been a major power ever, like Sweden, for instance. But there is this, you know, all of us Nordics, we are, at the end of the day, quite humble. We're quite proud of what we do. You know, if you look at all the top rankings in the world, whether it's quality of life, environment, uh, quality of water, uh, democracy, freedom index, uh, et cetera, et, or happiness, [laughs] you know?

    15. AGAdam Grant23:34

        I, I was waiting for you to mention happiness.

    16. ASAlexander Stubb23:36

        Yeah.

    17. AGAdam Grant23:36

        Finally.

    18. ASAlexander Stubb23:36

        Happiness. Finland's been the happiest country in the world for eight years running, so, you know, we, we're proud of that. But at the same time, there's this sort of toned-down happiness with it, and we're quite at ease with who we are. Uh, I quite often say that, you know, in Finland, we are calm, cool, and collected, and then when the X hits the fan, as you would say in a public program, we go into the sauna and take a cold bath, and I, I, I think that's quite descriptive of who we Finns are.

    19. AGAdam Grant24:07

        How do you think about the Finnish happiness advantage? I, I'm so curious about, I mean, obviously there are lots of factors that come into play, but What, what do you think are the, the key contributing factors?

    20. ASAlexander Stubb24:18

        Well, fir- first of all, y- you know that happiness is subjective, so, you know, it, it, it, it's something that comes from who you are. Then there's another subjective matter, and that is that I think the happiness index accumulates, so, [laughs] you know, if you're ahead for eight years, you're gonna continue to be there quite, quite high up for a while, the way in which the UN has set it up. But I think it comes from pretty basic things, so it's a bit of, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs type of thinking, uh, that in my mind, happiness comes from meaning, and meaning comes from helping someone else, and in order for you to be able to do that, you need a society which is egalitarian, so you give everyone pretty much equal opportunity through, uh, education. I think we're also a fair society. I mean, never perfect. I don't claim that. We have a very close attachment to nature, but all of those things can be found in Norway or in Sweden or in Denmark or in Iceland as well, let alone the Baltic States. So, you know, it's, it's... We've been lucky because we also, we don't exactly show our happiness, so, you know, give me any Monday morning in a tram in Helsinki in November, and you're not gonna go into that tram feeling that, "Whoa, these people are really happy," because that's just how it is. But believe me, today, after we won the world championships in ice hockey and because of summer, we are very happy.

    21. AGAdam Grant25:41

        [laughs] Which is still probably understated by American standards.

    22. ASAlexander Stubb25:45

        Exactly.

14. 25:46 – 40:33

    Education, losing well, candor, democracy under stress, and a rapid-fire finish (AI included)

    1. AGAdam Grant25:46

       You mentioned the education system, which also has been, I think, a great source of Finnish pride for a long time. One of the things that I was blown away by when I, I studied the Finnish education system was just the amount of care and attention that goes to each student to say, "We wanna bring out the best in every student." And so instead of, like, the American, you know, no, no child left behind, in Finland, the goal is for every child to get ahead, and I, I really, I could not believe that the norm is for every school to have a team of psychologists and social workers who are actually checking in on the well-being of each student, not just their, their grades. You were obviously shaped in formative ways by the Finnish education system. What mattered most from your perspective, and, and what could the rest of the world learn from what Finland is doing well?

    2. ASAlexander Stubb26:30

       Well, I, I probably wasn't the model student at school. I'm quite open about that. But I think a lot of it starts from the sort of Aristotelian thinking that there's nothing more noble than teaching the young, and that mentality then goes into the education system. It's extremely difficult to become a fully qualified teacher because you need a master's degree, uh, in education. Uh, the community itself is good as well. I mean, you know, no school is, of course, perfect. As, as we know, no teacher is perfect, no kid is perfect, but we try to bring everyone up in an egalitarian way. We don't have too many private schools here. They're all public schools, and the good thing is also that the teachers get a lot of autonomy to teach. There is a curriculum, but you're not forced to follow one particular curriculum, and the pride that I see in the eyes of the teachers when I visit was really good. Now, I have to admit that as president, I've probably now been to 10 schools since I, I started, even 15, and all the schools they take me to are brand new and in [laughs] great shape. And of course, I'm getting a slightly skewed view, you know, with... But it's, the, the, the system seems to work well, and we're very proud of it.

    3. AGAdam Grant27:40

       You, you said something earlier that really surprised me, uh, because you were challenged by your good friend.

    4. ASAlexander Stubb27:44

       Yeah. [laughs]

    5. AGAdam Grant27:45

       Who, who is friends with the person who causes them to lose their job?

    6. ASAlexander Stubb27:48

       So basically, it, it's, it's Finnish politics, so it's a bit complicated. But Petteri Orpo, who is now our prime minister, he defeated me in 2016, and he was really hemming and hawing about challenging, and he felt [laughs] really sorry about it. And I said, "You know, don't, don't feel sorry about it. Just go for it." But for me, it was one of those things that I, I, I never give up, so I went in for the fight knowing that I might lose, but I didn't allow that to cross my mind. And when I lost, I felt it was like Liberation Day. So, you know, to be honest, my wife and I, at the conference center when I lost the vote, uh, we went out for a jog and opened a bottle of champagne and started to think about what our world would look like a- after the job. So, I, and I, I hold no grudges because I think he's a good guy, and in, in, in, in, in politics, there are people, to be honest, who are good, and then there are po- people who are really bad, who I, I, I simply cannot stand. So had it been someone who I disliked, I would probably not be as positive about it. But I was happy to hand it over to him and for, you know, all intents and purposes, seems to me that he's, he's done a good job for himself.

    7. AGAdam Grant28:51

       Oh, that's fair. Well, you know, I think you're, you're also demonstrating something right now that has been a real asset for you but could easily be a liability, which is just the, the level of candor and straightforwardness that you speak with. I think you're, you're, you're probably unusually blunt, both for a Finn and for a politician, and yeah, we, we can imagine all sorts of ways in which being unfiltered could be a problem. But I think you've used it to your advantage. Uh, I'd love to, I'd love to hear a story about how and a little bit of explanation of, of, you know, what's behind this.

    8. ASAlexander Stubb29:23

       Well, I, I, I think because I came from outside of politics, I w- I was 36 when I went into politics, so that's relatively late, and I, I was very much running on the ticket of being an expert on European affairs and running for the European Parliament, and I, I, I said things that, you know, I felt that were true and, and, and quite bold. And I think a lot of people at the time felt that, you know, he not only knows his things, but he's honest about it. The problem, of course, in politics is quite often you might get into trouble for being too blunt, so you do have to filter stuff. I mean, you know, even when we're speaking right now, subconsciously I am filtering and not saying things that I know that might get me into trouble, and this is not only because behind the camera I can see my head of communication and I know that she will pop her head up from behind the screen and give me angry faces if I go in the [laughs] wrong direction. So, you know, it, it's not complete- And now she got up. So, uh, it's not, you know, completely, uh, unfiltered. You, you always do that. Uh, but I see a lot of people who I think a- are not honest. I, I think they're fake. And I, I never see them really climbing up the highest ladder, or if they climb there, they fall down very quickly. Uh, and I, I take, I take comfort in that.

    9. AGAdam Grant30:43

       I've been ... One of the things I've been, I've been thinking a lot about when it comes to the, the rise of, you know, a particular style of a political leader is we have seen an authoritarian turn in the, the past decade or so around the world. And one of the, the patterns I've seen in the evidence that, yeah, that at first surprised me and then, you know, was ultimately illuminating, was in times of turbulence and in times of especially stress, people are often drawn to the confidence of, of a strong man or a strong woman leader. [laughs] You know, they, they take the, the assurances that I'm in charge as a signal that this person is also going to do right by their country or look out for their people's best interests. And I look at that and I think, "Well, there's a big gap between what authoritarian leaders stand for and what a servant leader would do." [laughs] I worry a lot that we, you know, we end up with takers instead of givers if we elevate that style. And it, it sort of creates a chicken and the egg problem, because we need a [laughs] more stable world in order to get people to be less drawn to authoritarians, um, and not get that false sense of security from strength. But [laughs] it's those leaders who are creating or contributing to the instability in the first place. So I would love it if you could enlighten me a little bit on where do we intervene in that cycle? How do we, how do we change that dynamic?

    10. ASAlexander Stubb32:03

        Okay. Well, let me preface this by saying, you know, a thing that I said in the book as well. I think we human beings make three mistakes. We over-rationalize the past, think that something happened a certain way even though it's a few hundred years away. Second, we over-dramatize the present. So you and I live very much in the present and think that this is probably the most challenging time in the history of mankind, which obviously we know it's not. And then thirdly, when we make these two mistakes, we underestimate the future. So that's where we come to the, your intervention question. I personally think that democracy has not adapted to modern technology, because modern technology allows us to express ourselves within seconds. And democracy was supposed to be slow and compromise-seeking and, and all of these things. And now we, we live in this sort of cacophony of stuff. Uh, information is thrown at us all the time, and we have to react to it, and that makes the world seem quite messy. Then there's a big promise of democracy that everyone's GDP per capita will grow, and some people feel that, "Well, you know, the promise that I was given didn't happen." And therefore we start basically voting for people who promise things which they then can't keep. Then we seek for these usually actually strong men who, you know, promise us stability from around the world. And, and this is a cycle of democracy. But the good thing with democracy, it's a little bit like an academic study. It does, you know, test in different directions, and then you get a solution. And, and that's why I think that lib- liberal democracy with all of its weaknesses is still the best one. Final point, yeah, we seek stability. We human beings are conservative. You know, I mean, we like to sometimes just feel that there's nothing new in life. We don't wanna rethink, [laughs] you know? Re- rethinking is tough. It's hard. It hurts the brain. You know, you have to con- connect your neural laces. It's painful. All I'm saying to everyone listening today is just have faith, you know? Things have a tendency to work out, but you, you have to work actively at democracy. You have to take the agency that is given to you. You have to vote. You have to try to have impact. You have to be an activist of sorts.

    11. AGAdam Grant34:13

        All right, let's go to a lightning round. Are you ready?

    12. ASAlexander Stubb34:15

        Uh, I, I'm ready. I'm ready.

    13. AGAdam Grant34:17

        All right. What is the worst advice you've ever been given career-wise?

    14. ASAlexander Stubb34:21

        Run for prime minister.

    15. AGAdam Grant34:22

        [laughs] I'm glad you followed it anyway, 'cause you wouldn't be here where you are now probably without it, but-

    16. ASAlexander Stubb34:28

        Exactly

    17. AGAdam Grant34:29

        ... nevertheless. You get to arrange a dinner party with anyone from history. Who are you inviting?

    18. ASAlexander Stubb34:34

        Okay. Um, well, I mean, I would like to go back to the big figures in history, and probably have a mix of intellectuals and politicians. So off the top of my head, I would like to have Nelson Mandela and Martin Luther King. I would like to have, um, Virginia Woolf, Mahatma Gandhi, Alexander Hamilton, because I was a huge fan of him even before the, the musical. I would probably like to have someone like Bertrand Russell just to get the sort of, you know, philosophical thing. I would like to have Freud there. Uh, I would like to have-

    19. AGAdam Grant35:16

        Oh, you lost me on Freud, Alex.

    20. ASAlexander Stubb35:18

        I know. I know. But, you know, it's just I, I also wonder, would like to have Marx there, Adam Smith, probably Keynes. Uh, so people who have thought big about the big issues in mankind and, and humanity. Uh, and then finally, I would probably have a few industrialists on the way to, to understand the first industrial revolution, the second, and, and the third.

    21. AGAdam Grant35:45

        I, I think it sounds like an incredible group. I think the one thing missing is a comedian, because every court needs a jester.

    22. ASAlexander Stubb35:51

        That's true. That's true. My favorite one right now is Norwegian. Uh, her name is Pernilla Haaland, and she takes the mickey out of me on Instagrams. [laughs]

    23. AGAdam Grant35:59

        Ah, can't wait. Okay. We'll look her up. Thank you for the rec. What's something you've changed your mind about recently?

    24. ASAlexander Stubb36:05

        Talking to Putin. So basically, there has been very much a no-go thinking that Europeans should not speak with Putin when the war is going on, but I have changed my mind on that. I think someone in Europe needs to do that, uh, and try to mediate peace.

    25. AGAdam Grant36:21

        I'm glad that you've come around on that, 'cause last I checked, peace does not happen through failing to interact.

    26. ASAlexander Stubb36:27

        You're absolutely right. Peace needs engagement. It needs mediation. It needs compromises. It needs work. Uh, it is painful. President Martti Ahtisaari, who was one of my predecessors, won the Nobel Peace Prize for mediating peace on three continents, in Namibia, uh, in Kosovo, and in, uh, Aceh, in Indonesia. And he used to say that whatever humans begin, humans can also end, and he also used to say that, uh, it's not the mediator that counts, but it's, it's the fact that the two warring parties at the end of the day, uh, feel that the deal is part of them.

    27. AGAdam Grant37:01

        Okay, last question for you. I'll give you the microphone. What's a question you have for me?

    28. ASAlexander Stubb37:06

        If you were 30 years old and you wanted to change the world, would you go into politics?

    29. AGAdam Grant37:13

        No.

    30. ASAlexander Stubb37:13

        You would not. Why is that?

Episode duration: 40:43