ough he thought of himself as a CEO and had his own board of directors, Armstrong knew that he really reported to GM vice chair- man, Harry Pearce. He had always wanted to be a full-fledged CEO, but he had missed the opportunity at IBM. Although he had tried to convince GM's CEO, Jack Smith, to spin off Hughes, Smith had made it clear that he wasn't interested in pursing the idea. So now that the AT&T search was for a CEO, rather than for his understudy, it was tempting on several levels. Armstrong would not only be a full-fledged CEO, but the CEO of a company of historical significance. From what he had read in the papers, the company was in sad shape. The challenge of fixing it appealed to his competitive instincts. And, also based on what he had read, he could hardly make things worse. For their part, AT&T's employees were duly impressed with Arm- strong's early press. But what really won them over was something he did before he even formally arrived at AT&T. Impatient to get started, but unwilling to saddle his wife with single-handedly packing up their household belongings for the second time in a year, Armstrong spent the week after the announcement of his appointment in California. But as soon as a free afternoon presented itself, he decided to visit a local AT&T sales office near his home. Instead of pulling up in a lim- ousine, he drove there in his Porsche, evaded the waiting AT&T digni- taries waiting for him in the front lobby by talking his way past the guard at the employee entrance, and wandered around the building introducing himself to startled clerks and sales people. AT&T's rumor mill spread the story across the company before he had left the building. The Early Days Armstrong's instincts to start inside and work his way out were con- sistent with our own. We adopted a formal strategy of keeping a rela- Work Inside Out Toward Your Customers tively low external profile during Armstrong's first ninety days. In addition to the obvious consideration that he had little to say at that early stage, we