Oscar Prediction: Adrian Brody's The Brutalist

I predict that Adrian Brody will win the Oscar tonight for his role in The Brutalist. When I watched the film I thought this was a film about how to be resilient in the face of terrible setbacks. Adrian Brody’s career is a testament to resilience, reinvention, and long-term thinking. From his Oscar-winning role in The Pianist (2002) to his likely triumph tonight for The Brutalist, Brody has navigated the unpredictable terrain of Hollywood with strategic patience.

In The Brutalist, Brody plays an architect who, after fleeing fascist Europe, builds a career under an employer who exploits and torments him.

This character’s journey is a striking metaphor for careers in any industry—where talent alone is not enough, and one must endure setbacks, power struggles, and reinvention to succeed.

I could imagine Adrian Brody's employer getting a one star rating on Glassdoor with lots of comments about harassment and beyond. Through all of it, he does not lose faith in his work. Adrian Brody delivers a haunting performance in The Brutalist, portraying an architect trapped under the thumb of a domineering employer who believes he owns him. With quiet intensity, Brody conveys the suffocating weight of exploitation, balancing defiance with the grim reality of survival. His character’s resilience shines through in subtle gestures—small acts of rebellion that hint at an unbreakable spirit. As the film unfolds, his struggle becomes a powerful meditation on artistic integrity versus oppressive control. Brody’s performance is a masterclass in restrained agony, making his eventual reckoning all the more impactful.

Brody himself experienced this after his early Oscar win. Instead of capitalizing on instant fame, he took unconventional roles, waiting for projects that aligned with his artistic vision. This aligns with Clark’s central message: Careers are no longer straight lines. Success requires playing the long game—building strategic relationships, focusing on long-term goals, and enduring periods of uncertainty. I predict he will get the Oscar. What do you think?

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The Long Game by Dorie Clark: Three Big Takeaways

Dorie Clark’s The Long Game is all about strategic career thinking. It teaches us how to build long-term success rather than chasing short-term wins.

Here are three powerful takeaways:

1. Create White Space for Strategic Thinking

In today’s fast-paced world, we often prioritize urgent tasks over important ones. Clark argues that creating “white space” in our schedules—time for deep thinking—allows us to step back, reassess our goals, and make smarter career moves. Without reflection, we risk getting stuck in a cycle of busyness without real progress.

2. Play the Long Game by Saying No

Success isn’t about doing more; it’s about doing the right things. Clark emphasizes the power of saying no to distractions and short-term rewards that don’t align with long-term goals. By being selective, we create opportunities for deeper work, build expertise, and gain influence in our chosen field.

3. Start with the End Goal and Work Backward

Clark suggests defining your ideal career outcome first, then reverse-engineering your steps to get there. This approach prevents aimless wandering and ensures every decision moves you closer to success. Whether it’s writing a book, switching industries, or becoming a leader, small, consistent actions compound over time.

I loved this book as a way to think about careers. Have you read it? Leave me a comment to let me know if you resonate with the ideas

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Book Review: The Great Reset by Nigel Paine

How do organizations learn? What is the sign that they have learned? What makes organizational learning happen? Nigel Paine’s latest book The Great Reset makes us wonder if have been solving it wrong all along.

Critical Problem? Tame Problem? Wicked Problem?

We’ve been getting it wrong. For decades, organizations have approached upskilling their workforce like it’s a straightforward challenge: identify skill gaps, create training programs, implement them, and measure success. Neat and tidy. But here’s the uncomfortable truth: organizational upskilling isn’t a tame problem with a clear solution path—it’s a wicked problem that defies conventional approaches.

Nigel Paine’s book begins with three kinds of problems. There are

(a) Critical Problems: a PR disaster or a product recall is a critical problem. Speed is of essence when you are solving a critical problem.

(b) Tame Problems: These are problems that can be solved by experts. You need to follow the steps given in the manual and the problem will go away. Experts have the answers to these problems. Many technical problems are often tame problems that experienced managers excel in solving.

(c) Wicked Problems: These are complex problems. It takes time to even define what is the problem that one needs to be solved.

Organizational Learning

The answer lies in misdiagnosis. We’ve been treating organizational learning as either a critical problem (requiring urgent expert intervention) or a tame problem (complex but solvable through established methods).

Neither approach works because getting an organization to learn is a wicked problem—ambiguous, continually evolving, and deeply entangled with organizational culture, individual psychology, and market dynamics.

Organizational Learning has some foundational elements: eg spaces – virtual and actual spaces for learning; finding ways to connecting ideas and people across traditional departmental boundaries and silos. Connecting people with diverse expertise and measuring the impact of learning initiatives are ways to build the organization’s ability to change itself. An organizational brain to improve its ability to solve problems is the final proof.

Nigel Paine’s “The Great Reset,” accurately suggests that effective organizational learning isn’t about isolated training programs but rather creating an integrated neural network. For example, upskilling the business is a wicked problem requiring holistic, interconnected solutions rather than simplistic approaches. Upskilling challenge isn’t just about knowledge transfer—it was about shifting mindsets, addressing workflow barriers, aligning incentive structures, and navigating complex interpersonal dynamics among team managers.

Nigel’s book as a terrific questionnaire that you could use as a starting point to understand how to get started on the journey of building an organization that learns.

Bonus finding

I learned about a new AI tool called Connected Papers (connectedpapers.com). It defines the field in connected circles of influence.  The more connections to that circle and the larger it is, the more central it sits in the canon. I expect to see this getting to the center of the canon. But then, how do we get more and more people to read this fantastic book is a WICKED problem to be solved.

I got a chance to speak to Nigel about his fabulous book. This is the unfiltered Nigel Paine.

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