Chris' post about the efforts of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to combat malaria reminded me of an interview I read a few weeks back of Dr. Tachi Yamada, the president of the Global Health Program for the Gates foundation.

The interview in the New York Times explores how Dr. Yamada developed his managerial style throughout his work in different companies and capacities. Here are a few quotes from the interview that I found particularly insightful...

"Learning how to delegate, learning how to let go and still make sure that everything happened, was a very important lesson in my first role in management. And that’s where I learned a principle that I apply today — I don’t micromanage, but I have microinterest. I do know the details. I do care about the details. I feel like I have intimate knowledge of what’s going on, but I don’t tell people what to do."

"[W]hen you actually are with somebody, you’ve got to make that person feel like nobody else in the world matters. I think that’s critical... I don’t have a mobile phone turned on because I'm talking to you... I don't carry a BlackBerry. I don’t want to be sitting here thinking that I’ve got an e-mail message coming here and I’d better look at that while I’m talking to you. Every moment counts, and that moment is lost if you’re not in that moment 100 percent."

"[Y]ou can’t possibly be competitive in the world unless you actually go outside your own geography and learn the way other people live and think. That probably was the most important lesson I learned — that what’s out there is more important than what you already know, and that you’d better go out and learn what it is out there that you don’t know."

You can read the full interview here:
www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/business/28corner.html?ref=business