In 2000 I moved to the Bay Area to work at Yahoo headquarters. They had just purchased the company I worked for (broadcast.com) and I was extended an invitation to come out and be part of the team. Mostly, I went on meetings with potential mega-clients with our execs (Anil Singh, Jeff Mallett and Tim Koogle).
Tim Koogle was the wide-eyed Buffet meets Leary CEO/Chairman of Yahoo, and never failed to educate me every time I was around him. On several occassions, he would share some of his rules of business that he learned in his tenure at Motorola. One of the stories he told me several time was the story of Paul Galvin. Paul got some things right, several things wrong and got smarter the longer he was a leader. Eventually, he learned alot and helped thousands of other leaders grow into their paws.
There are quite a few lessons to be learned from the PG story.
I spoke at Netel’s annual leadership meeting in 2005, and relayed this story. Check it out out in this video-blog post.
Buy a DVD of a full keynote talk at my Ebay Store.
If you are interested in having me speak at your meeting, contact my team.
