managing

In the mid-2000s, when Robert E. Siegel was running the video surveillance division of GE Security, he was worried about getting a jump on the coming shift to digital from analog. He needed to offer a high-end digital video-management system, which would require taking roughly $2.5-million of the $19-million quarterly profit and investing it for the next six quarters on preparing for the future.

His boss told him if he wanted to take that path he would need to come up with an extra $5-million in revenue each quarter to maintain the current profit level. Mr. Siegel replied that if there was an easy way to sell that much extra product they would already be doing so and this was an existential issue demanding dramatic action. The two danced around the issue for about an hour until

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