Don Keough sparks a revolt at Coke by rejecting a plan without a full evaluation

From Donald Keough's book "The Ten Commandments for Business Failure." This is regarding Commandment Four: Assume [Your] Infallibility.

Earlier I mentioned being fortunate in having a team of managers who individually thought my executive infallibility was not so infallible. One very important instance occurred right after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989.

If you want to fail, do what I did.

We were in a meeting with the head of our German operations and Claus Halle, also a German, who was head of all our international operations. During a review of a routine annual business plan, the German management team put a project on the table that called for the company to invest roughly half a billion dollars or more in this new democratic state of East Germany [now part of the Federal Republic of Germany]. The project cut deeply into the total budget that was being put together, and apparently I was tough, to a fault, in rejecting it. After the meeting Claus came to me and said the head of the German management team wanted to resign.

I was shocked. Why?

Claus responded, "You didn't listen clearly to what he had to say. Much of this investment would come from the German bottlers. You don't know the potential of East Germany. You've never been there. You rejected it out of hand without considering that this could be a great opportunity."

Claus went on, "At the very least, you should talk to them again. But I'd like to ask you to do more. Come with me to see East Germany for yourself, first hand, and make up your own mind."

We went to East Germany. We went everywhere. And everywhere I saw opportunity. My mind was completely changed. We assembled everyone involved together, and I apologized for being so narrowly focused and so intransigent. Together, we made plans then and there to buy several plants in the East....

Our ultimately profitable experience in East Germany and in the rest of the Eastern European countries is further proof that one cannot know enough about a country or a business situation from a briefing book in the comfort of one's headquarters offices. (pp 63-65)