The Question That Saved Ford, and the One I Had to Ask Myself First

A little over two years ago, I stopped running.

Recently, I decided to train for a half marathon and quickly realized something uncomfortable: ambition doesn't eliminate reality. Before I could move forward, I had to honestly assess where I was starting from.

Organizations face the same challenge.

Alan Mulally discovered it when he arrived at Ford and found a leadership team reporting green dashboards while the company was losing billions. The turnaround didn't begin with strategy. It began when someone finally felt safe enough to tell the truth.

The gap between what your organization knows and what it will say out loud is where every stall begins.