Aligning Strategy and Sales

2

Diagnosing the Problem

Lewis Thomas was dean of Yale University and New York University Medical Schools, president of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Institute, and generally acknowledged as “the father of modern immunology.” Thomas once estimated that before the twentieth century, going to a hospital lowered your odds of survival. The state of the art meant that diagnoses were uncertain, sanitary conditions spread infections, and therefore the prescribed medical strategy more often than not had multiple unintended consequences. Indeed, some estimate that this was true for decades into the twentieth century, until disinfectants and penicillin for civilian use became common. Hence, Count Nicolas de Chamfort's aphorism about medicine and philosophy ...