Speaking Up

PARTIThe People at the Top

Having worked as a psychologist, consultant, and college teacher, I had zero idea about management structure or strategy when I joined Hewlett-Packard in 1980. As you’ll see in Chapter 1, I found out the hard way that what you don’t know can hurt you. The lessons I learned over the years (mostly about what not to do) became rich background for this book. After reading Speaking Up^®: Surviving Executive Presentations, you won’t have to make the same mistakes I made.

In the famous military treatise, The Art of War, Sun Tzu advises, “Know your enemy and know yourself, and you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.”¹ In Chapter 2, you will meet your “enemy.” While life at the top levels of corporate America can ...