In this episode of Boss Files, you know, you can't abandon your troops when the going gets tough.

That's my operating premise.

Businessman Dick Parsons. His long career has largely been about turning around companies and organizations in the middle of a crisis.

From Dime Bank to Time Warner to Citigroup and the Los Angeles Clippers.

A Queens native, he never officially graduated from college, but he went to law school and

became a lawyer, then found his way to the White House and was later tapped to lead some of

the country's biggest companies. Why he says having a sense of humor was a big reason for his success.

It puts people at ease and it also helps put things in perspective. Plus, he calls himself

a political animal, but he never ran for office. Why? And what does he make of the state of politics

in America today? I think the Republican Party is in shambles, and the Democrats are so fractured and splintered

that it's almost not a party there.

Parsons is facing perhaps his biggest challenge right now as he battles multiple myeloma.

You become more aware of your mortality. That is a fact.

And that modifies and changes your priorities and your agenda in terms of the things that

are important to get done now.

So when the book on Dick Parsons is written, what will the title be?

I ask him.

Well, I'll tell you.

If I knew the answer to that, I'd write the damn book.

I don't know. I don't know.

I had a working title, which was, it's nobody.

It's nobody.

...