On the first day of first grade, our teacher asked us to color a picture of a buffalo with a brown crayon. Feeling creative, I used black and brown crayons, earning a severe reprimand. Ever since, I’ve been fascinated with the tension between freedom and accountability.

After college, I was privileged to serve as the first financial controller for a feisty startup called Morning Star, now a billion dollar, vertically-integrated food processor and the largest player in its industry. Our founder introduced our startup team to the core principles of self-management, which we quickly adopted . At Morning Star, I learned that organizational self-management is real, it works and it creates space for extraordinary performance.