An ongoing client of mine for many years was a large Fortune 500 industrial products company with a hodgepodge of different divisions, businesses, and functions spread out all over the world. One day, while working on a cost reduction project in one of the smaller divisions, I received a message from one of the division’s senior executives. The email was marked “URGENT!” in red block letters and tagged with a red flag. The subject read “Board Meeting!” The note went on to