Many, many years ago while I was studying for my master’s degree, I worked nights at Firestone Tire and Rubber Company to support my young family. It was then and there that I learned how important it is to understand the whole when your immediate job deals only with the part . It happened this way. Th e fi rst day on my new job I was told to stand in front of a long moving conveyor belt and apply black paint to both ends of six-foot-long and two-foot-wide pieces of rubber that kept coming toward me. I did this terribly boring work for three hours before it came time for my coff ee break, when I went straight to my supervisor’s offi ce and asked him what on earth was the meaning of this tedious job. Perhaps because he knew that I was a college kid capable of being promoted to foreman someday, he took me through the plant and showed me the whole process of building a Firestone tire.