White Papers - Introduction
White papers have four objectives:
- To force a thorough thinking-through of the issues of most importance.
- To enable the person Dan is advising to reflect on these ideas.
- To clearly lay out the next step.
- To ensure a paper trail is left behind after his work is done.
Each white paper is tailored specifically for the leader for whom it is written. One of Dan's assistants estimated that he has written over 1,000 white papers. The next several pages offer a list of white papers that have been written most recently.
In the More Detail section are two examples. First is a sanitized version of an actual white paper called "Message to a Future CEO." It was written to a person who had assumed he was the designated successor of the CEO who had just announced his retirement. He told me that he was now convinced the CEO favored another senior manager. I was advising the CEO and the board and believed that not to be the case ... but what was true is that they wanted to see if this young, high-potential manager could show the patience of maturity and act in a way that proved he cared more about the success of the whole company than he did about just the parts that reported to him.
The second summary is "Leadership Philosophy for a New Era ... Building Blocks." It was written for someone who had just been promoted to CEO. He & I had talked about the differences he would encounter as CEO ... he soon recognized that it would be unlike any other position he had had. This paper was in response to his request that I help him think through and prepare for those differences.