Originally appeared in the New York Times

April 18, 2010
By AMY WALLACE

IN 2006, Frank Nuovo was 45 — “boom!” he says, “five more years to 50!” — and at the top of his game. Except for one thing: “I’d kind of lost my soul.”

As chief of design at Nokia, the world’s leading mobile phone supplier, Mr. Nuovo presided over a huge team that brought 250 products and accessories to market each year. Among many other things, he was credited with inventing removable face plates, those colorful accessories that turn a phone into a personal fashion statement.

A sought-after public speaker, Mr. Nuovo logged about 200,000 miles a year on planes and was often inter viewed by journalists, one of whom, in a profile in The New Yorker, called him “the Henry Ford — or at least the Calvin Klein — of cellular communication.”

But something wasn’t right. Everybody’s heard of the Peter Principle, the idea that organizations tend to promote people to one level beyond their competency. But what do you call an almost-opposite phenomenon, when a person is promoted to the highest heights and excels at that altitude, but is left feeling empty? Whatever you call it, that’s what Mr. Nuovo was experiencing. Click to continue »