Sound Footing

“I think any time you move into a new organization, it's just so important that you respect the history. You respect the people. You learn as much as you can about it. You seek to understand before you seek to be understood. And then you move very, very decisively but very sure-footedly into a new world. Because you know there is nothing worse than somebody coming in and acting like they know everything when you know they don't. They start handing out all of the assignments… It's just not the way I approach it.”

(Alan Mulally, President and CEO of Ford Motor Company, in “Conversations From The Corner Office: Ford Motor Company President and CEO Alan Mulally.” with Kai Ryssdal. www.marketplace.org. January 15, 2008)