The Fine Touch of Balancing

“One of the things I talk a lot about is the necessity to juggle all of the constituencies that have an interest in the business: shareholders, customers, employees, vendors, and the communities in which we operate. Those constituencies are all mildly in conflict with one another in terms of what's best for them. Your job as a leader in a company is to find an appropriate way to juggle those conflicting interests so everybody feels like they're getting a fair deal, without letting any one dominate the others because they'll drag your company down.”

(Charles Geschke, co-founder and co-chairman of Adobe Systems, in “Driving Adobe: Co-founder Charles Geschke on Challenges, Change and Values.” Knowledge@Wharton: September 3, 2008)