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What's Next? The Leader’s Playbook
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04Precedent · how it went for them

The situation“The board has asked for a one-page strategy and I don't know where to start.”

Leaders who made the same call — what each did, and how it went.

WorkedHalf-worked

Worked · Pat Mitchell, PBS, 2000–2001

When Pat Mitchell became PBS's first female CEO in March 2000, she inherited a 349-station federated system, no centralised strategy, a Congressional funding model that was never stable between administrations, and a board that wanted a direction.

Worked · Steve Jobs, Apple, 1997

Apple had hundreds of products, a confused positioning, and was weeks from insolvency.

Half-worked · Carol Tomé, UPS, 2020 onwards

When Carol Tomé became CEO of UPS on 1 June 2020, she inherited a business whose identity had been built over a century around being bigger — more parcels, more routes, more trucks, more volume.

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