How to Castrate a Bull: Unexpected Lessons on Risk, Growth, and Success in Business

by Dave Hitz

Dan held an all-day staff meeting shortly after he arrived, and at the end he said, “I want everyone to rank our candor. You know each other better than I do. Did people say what they really believe? Did you? I won’t ask you to explain your score, but I’m going to go around the room, and I want everyone to give a grade from one to five—five is good—on how candid you think we were with each other during this meeting.” Dan felt that there was lots of bad politics at NetApp, and he wanted to quash it. He didn’t mind if people disagreed with each other—that is a healthy part of finding the best path forward—but he wanted us to do it in the open, to each other’s faces. We went around the room, and the average score was two, maybe two-and-a-half. Dan didn’t beat us up and didn’t ask for details; he just said, “I see we have some work to do. This is important to me.”