Some good stuff

Q. Any particular techniques for managing your time, the crush of e-mail?
A. I try to go to sleep every night, wherever I am in the world, with fewer than 10 e-mails in my in-box. I try never to read an e-mail twice, so I delete it when I’m done. One of my philosophies is I respond as soon as I can, and if it’s important enough and I’ve deleted it, it’ll come back. And I say 10 only because sometimes there are attachments that require a little bit more effort, and so you don’t want to be flippant, either. But for ones that are F.Y.I., you know, I just delete them.

I have another philosophy, which is, unless I am the sole person on the “to” line, I don’t feel the need to respond.

Q. Why take the extra step of deleting it?
A. I think it just feels cleaner. It feels like I’ve dealt with it.

Q. What do you think business school should teach more of, or less of?
A. I think business schools need to focus more on a cross-functional curriculum to help aspiring managers think about things not from the perspective of finance or marketing, or accounting, but cross-functionally. The second thing I would say is leadership and really talking about how you equip people to think and learn and adapt. I think that’s really more reflective of how successful somebody is going to be, as opposed to a mastery of a specific piece of work in one of those functional disciplines.

Q. So leadership can be taught?
A. Well, I believe that sharing experiences and enabling people to reflect on what’s important to them and how they would react is certainly a way for individuals to be able to think about what’s important to them and how they hone their leadership style.