Summary Of Louis V Gerstner Jr S Who Says Elephants Can T Dance

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 On December 14, 1992, I had just returned from one of those always well-intentioned but rarely stimulating charity dinners that are part of a New York City CEO’s life. I had not been in my Fifth Avenue apartment more than five minutes when my phone rang with a call from the concierge desk downstairs. It was nearly 10 P. M. The concierge said, Mr. Burke wants to see you as soon as possible this evening. #2 In 1993, IBM was looking for a new CEO. The search committee hired two recruiting firms to find the best candidates. I met with Burke and his fellow search committee member, Tom Murphy, then CEO of Cap Cities/ABC. I told them that I was not qualified for the position, and that I did not want to proceed any further with the process. #3 I was skeptical of IBM, as I read what the press, Wall Street, and the Silicon Valley computer visionaries and pundits were saying about them. They had written a book, Computer Wars, that took a grim view of IBM’s prospects. #4 I had been drawn to a challenge ever since I left Harvard Business School. The IBM proposition was daunting, but it was also intriguing. I wanted to meet with Paul Rizzo, an executive at IBM in the 1980s, to see how the company was planning for the future.

Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? sums up Lou Gerstner's historic business achievement, bringing IBM back from the brink of insolvency to lead the computer business once again.Offering a unique case study drawn from decades of experience at some of America's top companies -- McKinsey, American Express, RJR Nabisco -- Gerstner's insights into management and leadership are applicable to any business, at any level. Ranging from strategy to public relations, from finance to organization, Gerstner reveals the lessons of a lifetime running highly successful companies.

"But, we've always done it that way." This is a warning sign, a symptom of impending disaster for any organization. Shackled, like powerful elephants, to the past, organizations rob themselves of the ingenuity required to meet new competitive challenges and escape the "re" dimension trap of "re-engineering, re-organization and re-structuring that concentrate on short term fixes rather than long term solutions. Teaching the Elephant to Dance is a practical, hands-on guide for creating the right change in any organization, large or small, corporate or governmental, manufacturing or service based. Filled with illuminating case studies, it shows how to devise new corporate visions and strategies... how to overcome inertia .. and how to form labor-management partnerships. Clear, authoritative, practical and inspiring, Teaching the Elephant to Dance provides a step-by-step guide for making the impossible happen.

In this eloquent first-person account of a family drama that changed the face of American business, the man who transformed IBM into the world's largest computer company reflects on his lifelong partnership with his father--and how their management style and shared dedication to excellence united to create a unique corporate culture that became the blueprint for the entire technology boom. In the course of sixty years Thomas J. Watson Sr. and his son, Thomas J. Watson Jr., together built the international colossus that is IBM. This is their story: a riveting and revealing account of two men who loved each other--and fought each other--with a terrible fierceness. But along with the story of a father and son, this is IBM's story too. It chronicles the management insights that shaped its course and its unique corporate culture, the style that made Thomas Watson Sr. one of America's most charismatic bosses, and the daring decisions by Thomas Watson Jr. that transformed IBM into the world's largest computing company. One of the greatest business-success stories of all time, Father, Son & Co. is a moving lesson for fathers who dream for their children, as well as a testament to American ingenuity and values, told in a disarmingly frank and eloquent voice. Promising to remain an important business reference as we move into the next century, FATHER, SON & CO. takes a look at the management insight that helped to shape IBM's course and unique corporate culture. It looks at Watson, Sr., one of America's most charismatic bosses, and Watson, Jr., who spurred IBM into the computer age. Ten years after its original publication, FATHER, SON & CO. remains a uniquely honest book. Watson's willingness to write about the loving but ferociously combative relationship he had with his father and the turbulent battles behind some of IBM's most far-reaching decisions gives readers rare insights into the realities of leadership. -->

The definitive guide to working with -- and surviving -- bullies, creeps, jerks, tyrants, tormentors, despots, backstabbers, egomaniacs, and all the other assholes who do their best to destroy you at work. "What an asshole!" How many times have you said that about someone at work? You're not alone! In this groundbreaking book, Stanford University professor Robert I. Sutton builds on his acclaimed Harvard Business Review article to show you the best ways to deal with assholes...and why they can be so destructive to your company. Practical, compassionate, and in places downright funny, this guide offers: Strategies on how to pinpoint and eliminate negative influences for good Illuminating case histories from major organizations A self-diagnostic test and a program to identify and keep your own "inner jerk" from coming out The No Asshole Rule is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today and Business Week bestseller.

Having the drive, ambition and inspiration to start a new business takes a particular mindset - no wonder we regard successful entrepreneurs as modern-day magic-makers. But what if that spirit and drive were applied outside the world of business startups? An entrepreneur seeks to build something from nothing; to take an inspired idea and make it a reality. How to Think Like an Entrepreneur explores what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur - the ability to disrupt the status quo, use design thinking to generate fresh perspectives, build resilience and leap forward from failure - and ultimately lead us to the heart of great entrepreneurial thinking; an understanding of our deepest human needs. By harnessing the passion, verve and creative thinking of an entrepreneur, you can improve your business and your life and relationships beyond it.

Coaching delivers high performance in you, your team, and your organization. "Coaching for Performance is the proven resource for all coaches and pioneers of the future of coaching." - Magdalena N. Mook, CEO, International Coach Federation (ICF) "Shines a light on what it takes to create high performance." - John McFarlane, Chairman, Barclays, Chairman, TheCityUK Coaching for Performance is the definitive book for coaches, leaders, talent managers and professionals around the world. An international bestseller, featuring the influential GROW model, this book is the founding text of the coaching profession. It explains why enabling people to bring the best out of themselves is the key to driving productivity, growth, and engagement. A meaningful coaching culture has the potential to transform the relationship between organizations and employees and to put both on the path to long-term success. Written by Sir John Whitmore, the pioneer of coaching, and Performance Consultants, the global market leaders in performance coaching, this extensively revised and extended edition will revolutionize the traditional approach to organizational culture. Brand-new practical exercises, corporate examples, coaching dialogues, and a glossary strengthen the learning process, whilst a critical new chapter demonstrates how to measure the benefits of coaching as a return on investment, ensuring this landmark new edition will remain at the forefront of professional coaching and leadership development.

Thomas J Watson Sr’s motto for IBM was THINK, and for more than a century, that one little word worked overtime. In Making the World Work Better: The Ideas That Shaped a Century and a Company, journalists Kevin Maney, Steve Hamm, and Jeffrey M. O’Brien mark the Centennial of IBM’s founding by examining how IBM has distinctly contributed to the evolution of technology and the modern corporation over the past 100 years. The authors offer a fresh analysis through interviews of many key figures, chronicling the Nobel Prize-winning work of the company’s research laboratories and uncovering rich archival material, including hundreds of vintage photographs and drawings. The book recounts the company’s missteps, as well as its successes. It captures moments of high drama – from the bet-the-business gamble on the legendary System/360 in the 1960s to the turnaround from the company’s near-death experience in the early 1990s. The authors have shaped a narrative of discoveries, struggles, individual insights and lasting impact on technology, business and society. Taken together, their essays reveal a distinctive mindset and organizational culture, animated by a deeply held commitment to the hard work of progress. IBM engineers and scientists invented many of the building blocks of modern information technology, including the memory chip, the disk drive, the scanning tunneling microscope (essential to nanotechnology) and even new fields of mathematics. IBM brought the punch-card tabulator, the mainframe and the personal computer into the mainstream of business and modern life. IBM was the first large American company to pay all employees salaries rather than hourly wages, an early champion of hiring women and minorities and a pioneer of new approaches to doing business--with its model of the globally integrated enterprise. And it has had a lasting impact on the course of society from enabling the US Social Security System, to the space program, to airline reservations, modern banking and retail, to many of the ways our world today works. The lessons for all businesses – indeed, all institutions – are powerful: To survive and succeed over a long period, you have to anticipate change and to be willing and able to continually transform. But while change happens, progress is deliberate. IBM – deliberately led by a pioneering culture and grounded in a set of core ideas – came into being, grew, thrived, nearly died, transformed itself... and is now charting a new path forward for its second century toward a perhaps surprising future on a planetary scale.