In a funny way, getting people to galvanize around a strategy is the easier part. The pressure comes when you realize that if you get it wrong or don't deliver, you're impacting the lives of a lot of individuals. I see it at our town-hall meetings - people translating what's going on to how's it going to impact them. And that's human nature, by the way. That's okay. They have a wife or a husband and kids to take care of.

When I say that I want a diverse management team, everybody assumes it's the classic metrics, gender and race. That's absolutely critical, but it's not enough of the answer. You don't want it to be the Friends of the CEO Club. We set out to build a team of people who had different experiences, had been to different places - they have scar tissue. It makes it more interesting, and it shows that you don't have to be tight with the CEO to get ahead.

Are you a nurturer or an intimidator?

There's a great anecdote where President Kennedy was down at NASA in the middle of the space program, and he walks up to a janitor, and just to be polite and gracious, he says, "What's your role here?" And the guy says, "I'm helping get a man to the moon." Now, I can tell you that guy's not working in a culture of intimidation.

If someone is an issue, I'm the first to admit that I'm like most executives: You're probably going to manage that situation more slowly than you think. You want your people to succeed. And part of it probably is that you don't want to admit that you might have made a bad decision. So you give that person two or three chances to see if you can reposition them so they can be successful.

If you have a choice of giving someone good news, bad news, or no news, no news ranks last. They'd rather have bad news than no news.

If you're going to come in and get on my calendar, I'm all ears - as long as you have something relevant to say. But don't come in here just to get face time.

I want to know what's good for the company, not what's good for me. After the Flash Crash [in May 2010, when the Dow fell 1,000 points in about a minute], no one from my team wanted me to go on TV, because no one really knew what had happened. I said, "Guys, I think you're protecting me, so thanks, but the person with my job has no choice but to go on TV right now, even though I don't have all the answers."

This business card will get me in almost anywhere. I can request a meeting with almost any CEO or world leader and have a reasonable chance at getting the meeting. But they won't have the interest in taking that meeting with me two years after I don't have the job.


BDST: 1812 HRS, FEB- 17, 2016
Edited by:  Sharmina Islam, Lifestyle Editor