the USC presidency and became president emeritus. In my new role, I still found that one of the most rewarding parts of my life was the interaction with Warren.
After I read his memoir, Still Surprised: A Memoir of a Life in Leadership, I told Warren that he may not have been fully aware of the sort of document he'd gifted us with.
“This isn't a book about leadership,” I told him one day at lunch.
He seemed taken aback. “Oh…then what is it?” he asked.
“It's a love story,” I said. “It's about a man who deeply loves humanity. A man who's spent his entire life seeking to understand humanity. And to help build up people who are worthy of serving humanity.”
Warren seemed touched. He was too modest to speak in such terms about himself or his work. But I could tell he knew, deep within, that he wasn't simply an expert on management, on power, or on leadership in even the broadest context.
He was a human being who knew and who loved humanity. And his legacy is an enduring one that shows future generations the way to find, recover, and celebrate this common humanity continuously.
It has been the privilege of a lifetime for Kathryn and me to have shared so many years of journeying together with Warren and his wonderful wife, Grace. And I hope this final collaboration between us gives adequate service to the man's genius.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors wish to thank a number of people who helped bring a coherent final form to the swirl of ideas contained herein. Dr. Sadie Moore, adjunct assistant professor at the University of Southern California and longtime aide to both Steve Sample and Warren Bennis, was of immense value. She not only guided the Art and Adventure of Leadership course for so many years but also helped translate the ideas that arose within that wonderful learning laboratory into one book with one voice.
Martha Harris, our longtime colleague, guided us along with wisdom and insight. Anne Westfall, longtime chief of staff to Dr. Sample, and Marie Dolittle, longtime aide to Dr. Bennis, kept the project steadily on course. Debra Ono of USC's Marshall School of Business was invaluable in bringing structure to early drafts. We are enduringly grateful to USC's 11th president, C. L. Max Nikias, for his support of this project and for his friendship. And Dave Logan, a dear colleague at both USC and Jossey-Bass, provided the push without which this book never would have been started.
Finally, Karen Murphy at Jossey-Bass and Judy Howarth, Christine Moore, and Lauren Freestone at John Wiley & Sons were brilliant, deft, and supportive in bringing this project, so dear to the authors' hearts, to completion.
INTRODUCTION
We are all failures – at least the best of us are.
This book is intended to be an outlier within the world of management and leadership. We believe this is necessary if society is to cultivate better and wiser leaders.
Much of today's management literature fosters warm feelings and unimportant results. It has good intentions but it leads to sterile outcomes.
Two things are too often lacking in popular analyses of leadership today. First, there is a need to pose more serious, even painful, questions to women and men who aim to lead. Second, there is a need for a real-world, mature, balanced treatment of the complex and convoluted role that failure plays in the life of a leader.
Though the age-old natural human impulse is to recoil from failure, failing forward and failing better have recently become catchphrases in business. This is a swing to the opposite end of the pendulum, and now most management experts, innovation experts, and start-up chief executive officers (CEOs) are using these terms too glibly.
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