Why I Am Writing This

There is no proprietary framework here. No methodology I'm trying to sell.

Over the next few weeks I'm going to share a series called "Questions I've Been Asked."

These are lessons collected over a long career. Some I learned the hard way. Others came from people who had already made the mistakes and were generous enough to share what they learned.

I've been fortunate to sit in a lot of different seats: in boardrooms, in the candidate chair, across the table as a hiring manager, in the room when plans succeeded, and in the room when they fell apart.

The answers usually aren't complicated. But when you're responsible for the outcome, the clock is running, and the stakes are high, the path forward can feel anything but simple.

What follows is a collection of those questions and the lessons behind them. Just things that mattered when the outcome did. We'll start where every good plan should start. Understanding the goal.