Modesty is often the best policy. Previous BlackBerry CEOs repeatedly angered shareholders by making boldly positive promises, in the teeth of mounting evidence. By contrast, John Chen ‘ who unlike his predecessors has a track record to justify some boasting ‘ is giving himself a realistic ’50:50 chance’ of turning the mobile firm around. The road ahead is a rocky one, and managing expectations will be important, hence why Chen remains grounded even though BlackBerry stock has risen by 56% since he took over. This is a good beginning, but comes from a low starting point and has mainly been achieved through market relief that BlackBerry had attracted a big-name CEO, famous for his reinvention of Sybase, followed by some…