Back in 2000, I was a rising star at IBM Storage Systems Division. I was three years out of college, garnered top performance reviews, aggressive in hitting deadlines, and known as a go-getter throughout the IT office. I worked as an SAP analyst supporting orders and returns. During this time period, IBM desktop hard disk drives failed at an unusually high rate and subsequently, had a correspondingly high rate of returns. Our reverse supply chain was inundated with return requests and we had many problems keeping up with the volume. Not surprisingly, customer satisfaction plummeted. After a grueling two-day cross-functional workshop to brainstorm solutions, I was selected as one of the leads to coordinate follow-up on all the workshop action items across departments. I set up a meeting with all the relevant parties from each group. I had a carefully planned agenda and...