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Let me start with a story: the three envelope story. Here it goes.

A new CEO, first day on the job, walks in through the front door. He is greeted by another person who is carrying a box and on his way out. The man steps in front of him, takes out three envelopes, hands them over, and says, "You might want these sometime." The new CEO says, "Okay," and the guy takes off. Heading up to his office, he asks, "By the way, who was that?" They tell him, "Oh, that was the old CEO." And he thinks, "Huh, okay. That's interesting."

At the end of his first day, sitting in his office, he goes through his desk and finds the envelopes. He puts them in a front drawer and forgets about them. Months go by. Things aren't going very well. Month three, month four, ten o'clock at night, he's alone in his office thinking, "What am I going to do?" Then he remembers the envelopes from the old CEO. He opens the one marked number one. There's a little note inside, and it says: blame the old CEO. He thinks, "That's it. Everything going wrong right now is because of previous decisions. It's because of that old guy, the person who had the job before me." So he gets active, making it very clear to his new team that none of this was his fault, that it was all because of the people before him.

Another three or four months go by. Again, ten o'clock at night, by himself. This isn't going well. He opens the second envelope. It says: reorg. "That's it. I'll reorganize the company. I'll shift things around." He gets out a piece of paper and starts redesigning, and he starts communicating: "This is where we need to go. Let me reorganize." Six months, eight months, nine months of activity, energy all around. We can all relate to this a little.

Almost twelve months later, ten o'clock at night, still not doing well. Things just aren't clicking. He opens the third envelope, takes out the piece of paper, and it says: write another three envelopes.

Now, this story reveals a lot of the cynicism, and sometimes the reality, that guides reorganization efforts. It also quickly illustrates some of the blunders, some of the mistakes, that we want to be very cognizant of and try to avoid.