AFTER I FINISHED my autobiography—a fun but crazily
intense grind that I wedged into the corners of my real job
at the time—I swore I’d never write another book again.
But I guess I did.
My excuse, if there is one, is that I didn’t actually come up with
the idea for this book.
It was given to me.
It was a retirement present, if you will, from the tens of thou-sands of terrific people I have met since I left GE—the energized,
curious, gutsy, and ambitious men and women who have loved
business enough to ask me every possible question you could
imagine. In order to answer them, all I had to do was figure out
what I knew, sort it out, codify it, and borrow their stories—and
this book was off and running.
The questions I’m referring to first started during the promotional tour for my autobiography in late 2001 and through much
of 2002, when I was overwhelmed by the emotional attachment