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Erik: How did participating in the GE management and training program shape your leadership
style?
Maurizio: I saw a bunch of really smart people and I saw a bunch of really accomplished people.
I used to think that the two would be the same and then I realized that being able to
accomplish things is not necessarily correlated with being the smartest person in the room,
not that I haven't met the smartest people in the room there. But it is almost more about
being resolute and being resilient. It was interesting because I had to jump from one
business to another in GE. Every 6 months I'd be sent to another country working in
another business and taking on one or two or more of the problems on the table of the
CEO right and say, I would land, they would say here are my problems which one do you
want to take? Generally, and then I would you know normally take one or two and then
one business I took six or seven and you run with that. It's very interesting because it's
high exposure and high scope situation with -- in a sense the ability to do mistakes without
being burned. Because even if you're going to do something totally stupid I guess you
will then move away from that business anyway. They won't hate you forever and it is still
somebody else's decision whether to implement it or not. So it's almost like trialing being
a CEO and in that, that leadership course was great.