4 Things That I Learned About Change From The Orange Revolution
In 2004, I joined a KP Media, the leading news organization in Ukraine, where I would become Co-CEO. In the runup to the presidential election that year, the opposition candidate for president, a technocratic reformer named Viktor Yushchenko, was poisoned by pro-Russian agents. He survived, but his face was permanently disfigured.
In that moment, the once mild-mannered banker was transformed into an inspirational leader. His opponent, an almost cartoonish thug named Viktor Yanukovych, tried to falsify the election. Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians poured into the streets to protest in what came to be known as the Orange Revolution.
It was very much an awakening. That was the moment when Ukraine, although not yet ready to turn away from Russia, began to insist on its independence and freedom, something that Vladimir Putin wasn’t willing to respect. It was also a turning point for me. It would permanently change how I saw the world and how it works. Here are four things I learned.
1. Power Doesn’t Work Like We Typically Think It Does
One of the first things I noticed about the Orange Revolution was that nobody with any conventional form of power had any ability to shape events at all. In fact, nobody seemed to understand…
