Leading Out Loud: A Guide for Engaging Others in Creating the Future, 3rd Edition

Who Are You?

I started my first career with IBM in San Francisco and was fortunate to have an upstanding, experienced older manager, David Gaisford. Dave frequently focused us on meaningful questions that to a twenty-six-year-old upstart sounded unnecessarily deep. Our crew of salespeople would meet once a week in a large conference room to share stories of the preceding week. At one such meeting, Dave posed the question, “Who are you?” He asked us to write down our discoveries and then share them around the table. I remember starting to perspire as my peers began to write. I was the youngest at the table, and did not want to have to speak first. Fortunately, the gauntlet started six or seven people in front of me, so by the time it was my turn, ...