Comebacks: Powerful Lessons from Leaders Who Endured Setbacks and Recaptured Success on Their Terms

You learn it’s not about you at all. . . . There’s nothing you can do. You have to accept that it’s not about you at all.

 

—HERBERT “PUG” WINOKUR, FORMER BOARD MEMBER, ENRON CORPORATION, QUOTING A FRIEND’S ADVICE IN 2001

Chapter Five

HERBERT “PUG” WINOKUR AFTER THE STORM

In the corporate world, “Enron” packs the punch of a four-letter word. Since the company’s bankruptcy filing in late 2001, its name and crooked E logo have become synonymous with management fraud, an inflated stock that dissolved into worthlessness, and top executives who went to jail. Employees who held stock options or shares in the company lost not only their jobs, but also their pensions and their life savings.

In the public mind, including much of the media, Enron was so ...