The One Thing You Need to Know

Chapter One: A Few Things You Should Know About the "One Thing"

"Get me to the core"

"If you dig into a subject deeply enough, what do you find?"

In one sense this book began with a conversation with Carrie Tolstedt in a hotel lobby in Los Angeles. Carrie is the head of Wells Fargo's regional banking group, a position she has held for the last four years and in which she has been inordinately successful. As with many effective leaders, though, she is by nature self-critical. Despite the fact that she had just delivered a rousing speech to her regional managers, I was not overly surprised to find her standing off by herself looking a little dissatisfied.

"What's up?" I said. "The speech went really well." One always tends to offer reassurance to speakers after a speech, but in this case it was accurate. She had been speaking on the subject of customer service and how, with most banking products being a commodity in the marketplace, Wells Fargo would live or die based on the quality of it ... read full excerpt from: The One Thing You Need to Know: About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success ebook