Book Club

At Ford Motor Company, every executive's status chart showed green—even as the company hemorrhaged seventeen billion dollars. Why? Because you couldn't be wrong at Ford and keep your position. So nobody was wrong. The company was failing, sure, but not because of me.

This session introduces the Outward Mindset Pattern—SAM: See Others, Adjust Efforts, Measure Impact—through the transformative story of Alan Mulally's turnaround at Ford. When one brave executive finally showed red on his chart, Mulally's response changed everything: "You aren't red. The issue you're working on is red." That distinction—people aren't problems, people have problems—unlocked the psychological safety that allowed real collaboration to begin.

Participants explore each element of SAM through personal application. What burdens lift when we truly see others? The pressure to perform, impress, and sell transforms into a simple question: "How can I help?" A fundraiser discovers that shifting from sale-focus to person-focus changes everything. A health and safety professional realizes that rigid rules don't require rigid delivery. A facilitator recognizes that not having all the answers is actually freedom, not failure.

The conversation deepens around measurement. Are we measuring output or impact? Phone calls made versus problems solved? Tickets closed versus people helped? Meetings held versus growth achieved? A powerful contribution from Bethlehem University in Palestine reframes impact entirely: "Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well. It's the certainty that something is worth doing no matter how it turns out."