Excerpts

INTRODUCTION An Unending Journey Two roads diverged in a wood, and, I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. --ROBERT FROST WHEN I STARTED to write the Introduction to this book, I sat at my desk, thinking about how I had come to this amazing point in my career. You see, I have dreamed about writing a book ever since I was a child. I thought for a long time about the right way to introduce myself and explain why I spent several years of my life researching and writing the book you hold in your hand. What should I tell you about myself and my work? Why have I tackled such a weighty topic as the irresistible forces fundamentally changing the business landscape? Why have I chosen a career helping leaders shift their perspectives and organizations change their cultures to a shared-value model? Why do I feel compelled to share this journey? It all started when I found myself at a legendary fork in the road. You know the one. Down the left lane lies the comfortable route you had planned to take all along. To the right stretches an unknown and slightly scary road less traveled. I arrived at my crossroads on a perfectly sunny, late summer morning in 2001. I was sitting at my desk in my office in Stamford, Connecticut, busily working at my job as a vice president for the technology research and consulting firm Gartner. I loved that job. When Gartner had hired me to launch its organization development function, I felt as if I had finally reached the destination for which all my passion and education had prepared me. Nothing excited me more than helping an organization grow and thrive. Then my world suddenly tilted off its axis. A colleague rushed into my office to tell me that two planes had crashed into the Twin Towers at theWorld Trade Center in New York City. I stopped what I was doing, got on the Internet, and stared at my monitor, transfixed by the horror unfolding before my eyes. I couldn't get to my home on Long Island because the New York City metro area had completely shut down. But that's not what worried me at that moment.What scared me to death was the fate of my brother-in-law, Jimmy, a New York City firefighter. It took an eternity for me to get through the jammed phone lines to reach my sister Carolyn. I cried with relief when she told me Jimmy was safe. He wasn't scheduled to work that day. Tragically, however, every member of his squad working that day perished along with hundreds of other rescue workers when the towers collapsed. That event stopped me in my tracks. In the days and weeks that followed, I did what I always do when the world seems to rumble beneath my feet. I took stock of my life. All my training, all my experience, and all the work I did to bank a big paycheck now paled in comparison with the shock waves created by the collapse of those two buildings. I had always longed to start my own firm. And I wanted to make a difference, a big difference. When I thought of the thousands who had died or suffered terrible losses on September 11, I realized that something unexpected could end your dreams at any moment. A month later, I left Gartner to launch my own consulting firm, with the expressed mission to help business leaders build better enterprises in this scary new post-9/11 world. In the first few years on my new path, my colleagues and I provided organization development services, helping clients create better strategies, manage change more skillfully, build higher-performing cultures, and develop stronger leaders. The work gave me great pleasure. I worked with a lot of interesting clients and ethical leaders. I got involved in and led challenging projects. I earned a good living. Yet some deep inner voice kept telling me I could do more. It kept asking hard questions: "What does your work mean? Will what you do make any real difference to the quality of people's lives? Can meaningful work and profitability go hand in hand? What abiding passion will keep you hopping out of bed each morning, eager to get to work?" It made my head hurt. So maybe, I concluded, I should stop using my head and start following my heart. Excerpted from The New Corporate Facts of Life: Rethink Your Business to Transform Today's Challenges into Tomorrow's Profits by Diana Rivenburgh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.