Years ago, one of my clients, a VP at GM, was at lunch with his team when he joked, “I wonder what a pink Reatta would look like.” They all had a good laugh, then went about their day. Months later, Dave’s team presented him with an all-pink Reatta—pink exterior, pink leather interior, pink whitewall tires. He was dumbstruck.
Dave’s anecdote perfectly exemplifies the insidiousness of the “power of ten.” Because every conversation takes place in the context of a hierarchy, people often take even a leader’s informal musings as gospel. When the leader says, “I …
