From the course: Leadership Stories: 5-Minute Lessons in Leading People

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Permission to spend in hard times

Permission to spend in hard times

From the course: Leadership Stories: 5-Minute Lessons in Leading People

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Permission to spend in hard times

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- When she was a young executive at Eastman Kodak Katherine Hudson was visiting an important customer in Japan at the beginning of an economic crisis. Now, the customer's father who'd founded the company had worked very hard to build a successful family business from scratch. And he didn't do it by making stupid financial decision. Well, at this particular meeting, Katherine was surprised when the customer handed her a purchase order for a very expensive piece of equipment. And so, she asked, given the difficult economic conditions in your country, are you sure you wanna make this large of an investment right now? Well, the guy points to a big bamboo plant in his office, and he said, you see how that bamboo plant grows? it has long spurts of growth, and then it stops for a while, and then another growth spurt, and then it stops for a while. It's during those times of slower growth that the bamboo plant builds the strong rings that serve as the foundation for it's next growth spurt…

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