Thus began a lifelong process of trying to build organizations that allow for hierarchy but at the same time bring people together for problem solving, regardless of where they are positioned within the organization.

If the directors felt there was a crisis, they were politely hiding it from me.

I just had to find the teammates who were ready to try to do things a different way.

We got there in stages because, while you can force anything down the throat of an organization, if people don’t buy into the logic, the change won’t stick.

In IBM’s culture of “no”—a multiphased conflict in which units competed with one another, hid things from one another, and wanted to control access to their territory from other IBMers—the foot soldiers were IBM staff people. Instead of facilitating coordination, they manned the barricades and protected the borders.