1: “It’s ten years out, and Netflix is a failed firm. Estimate the probabilities of the different causes.”

That’s the exercise Netflix CEO Reed Hastings poses to his leadership team. 

“Let’s say one cause is that a plane crash takes out Netflix’s headquarters,” Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram Malhotra write in their book  CEO Excellence: The Six Mindsets That Distinguish the Best Leaders from the Rest.… continue reading

1: It was January of 2014. Mary Barra was in her early days as CEO of General Motors when a major crisis hit. The carmaker had been implicated in a number of fatal crashes due to faulty ignition switches.

“When you have a crisis, it’s not like you know the significance of it immediately,” she recalls in CEO Excellence by McKinsey consultants Carolyn Dewar, Scott Keller, and Vikram … continue reading