chapter ONE
Introduction
The Power of Reframing
Bob Nardelli expected to win the three-way competition to succeed management legend Jack Welch as CEO of General Electric. He was stunned when Welch told him late in 2000 that he’d never run GE. The next day, though, he found out that he’d won the consolation prize. A director of Home Depot called to tell him, “You probably could not feel worse right now, but you’ve just been hit in the ass with a golden horseshoe” (Sellers, 2002, p. 1).
Within a week, Nardelli hired on as Home Depot’s new CEO. He was a big change from the free-spirited founders, who had built the wildly successful retailer ...