It's up to the CEO to say, 'Let's go do this'.

• Author: Whitacre, Ed
• Position: American Turnaround: Reinventing AT&T and GM and the Way We Do Business in the USA - Brief article - Book review

From American Turnaround by Ed Whitacre. Copyright [c]2013 by the author. Published by Business Plus (www.hachettebook-group.com).

THERE IS AN OLD COWBOY SAYING: "Do it right or get off the horse." Focus and common sense. Don't ever underestimate the value of either in a business environment. Persistence, that's another important ingredient. You just hang in there; you don't give up. Before you can get to that point, of course, you have to be willing to stand up and say to yourself or to an entire employee body: Let's go do this. Because if you never give it a shot, never push outside your comfort zone to at least try, you'll never get to the point we're talking about. That's how I always saw my role as CEO: as the guy who was always willing to stand up and say to everybody, "Let's give this thing a shot." I never knew for sure how things were going to turn out when I did that, but I was hopeful. And I always believed in my people. I just fundamentally believed that so long as the people were with us, we could do and accomplish just about anything...