'Another day in which to excel'.

• Author: Kristie, James
• Position: Conference on business performance management - Editorial

'A new world ... a time of opportunity ... the opportunity to create an environment for business to flourish...." This clarion call for directors for 2004 rang forth from a recent meeting in Philadelphia (where other clarion calls of opportunity have been known to sound). Richard Thornburgh, former U.S. attorney general who was the examiner for the World-Com bankruptcy, led a panel that included Ronald Naples, chairman and CEO of Quaker Chemical Co., and Stephen Crimmins, who served in the SEC's Enforcement Division before becoming a partner with Pepper Hamilton LLP. They took this occasion--a launching of a Philadelphia chapter of the National Association of Corporate Directors--to motivate the audience to embrace the progressive spirit of governance reforms and thus create a sound platform for the resumption of strategic growth and risk taking.

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These "time of opportunity" comments move me to share with you a story of an incident indelibly stamped on my psyche. It happened in 1972 as I was finishing up a four-year hitch in the U.S. Navy and looking ahead to my next career step. As I entered the elevator one morning of the base station's headquarters in which I worked, a commander, chest splashed with ribbons and medals, followed me on.

After a year of riding the elevator every day, I generally recognized the senior naval officers who worked in the building, but he was a stranger. Elevator etiquette being not...