Losing It! Behaviors and Mindsets that Ruin Careers: Lessons on Protecting Yourself from Avoidable Mistakes

7. Reality

Get Real or Get Out

The delusional behavior that sticks in my mind is the group suspension of disbelief of the GE nuclear systems business some two-and-a-half decades ago. This group had meetings and produced beautiful strategic planning books claiming that the projected sales and earnings of this once-great GE division that produced reactors made electricity that was “too cheap to meter”: “Three reactors this year; more next.” That was Kool-Aid talk, and it never happened, of course. Jack Welch gave the fish eye, and worse, to the execs who “pitched” the next year’s business fantasy to him. He made them stop and turned their faces toward the reality that there would be no new nuclear reactor orders in the United States—maybe forever, ...