Sublime

Among Kelly Johnson’s strengths was a sure grasp of what mattered to his people and what didn’t. Most of them were engineers and tinkerers who hated paperwork, which he cut to an absolute minimum.

In the late 1990s, a group of midlevel students at GE’s Crotonville leadership institute challenged him, saying that the “#1, #2, fix, close, or sell” strategy was hurting the company because executives were gaming the system.

Warren Bennis Santa Monica, California November 1996

The best way to solve a management problem, he believed, was through “creative confrontation”—by facing people “bluntly, directly, and unapologetically.”fn7

introduced by the legendary air force pilot and military strategist John Boyd: observe, orient, decide, and act.

Skunk Works, cowrit-ten by Leo Janos).

Robert Quinn, professor of organizational behavior and human resource management at the University of Michigan, describes an organization as a coalition of coalitions.[4]

As it turned out, I later followed Bob’s advice and attended the leadership program at Cal Tech.