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Saving Big Blue: Leadership Lessons and Turnaround Tactics of IBM's Lou Gerstner
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by Robert Slater
Sales Rank: 330735
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$0.46
At Amazon
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Hardcover: 309 pages
Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies; 1 edition July 20, 1999
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0071342117
ISBN-13: 978-0071342117
Product Dimensions:
9.5 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
Product Review
From the early 1950s into the late '80s, IBM was the computer industry. Not only that, IBM was, to many, industry itself. It consistently set the standard for corporate performance and profitability, both in the U.S. and worldwide. But that all changed in a strange, swift, and brutal way. IBM--which had fiddled while Microsoft and Intel created a firestorm in the personal-computer world--lost money for three consecutive years in the early '90s. The decision to allow Microsoft to control PC software and Intel to supply the microprocessors (they're both companies IBM could've easily bought out early in the game) came back to bite IBM on its bloated blue butt. And its no-layoffs policy, though admirable, meant the company kept a workforce of more than 300,000, making decisions at a glacial pace while other companies nimbly jumped from one new market to the next.
All that changed when Lou Gerstner was named CEO of IBM in 1993. Gerstner had already led turnarounds at American Express and RJR Nabisco, and, as Saving Big Blue details, he proved to be the right man for the job. Gerstner started by changing the company's funereal dress code and eventually redirected the company to provide computer services rather than just computers. Saving Big Blue makes for interesting reading as a case study, but also provides a blueprint for any manager attempting to turn around a business. --Lou Schuler
From Publishers Weekly
Former Time magazine reporter Slater (Jack Welch and the GE Way; Ovitz: The Inside Story, etc.) doesn't go as far as Garr in IBM Redux (reviewed above) to document the story of IBM's turnaround. Slater's main method of getting at Gerstner the man is to stud the book with quotes from previously published Gerstner interviews in such magazines as Fortune and Business Week. In the chapter "What's Lou Gerstner Like: 'You're Not Getting Inside My Head,'" Slater fails to dig for meaningful biographical information and instead serves up twice-warmed tidbits that shed little light on his subject: "Once I have a feeling for the choices, then I have no problems with the decisions. I love to make strategic decisions." As for telling the story of Gerstner's miracle-working, or of his notorious imperiousness, Slater's conceit of making each chapter convey a "Leadership Lesson" ("Sweep Aside the Old Corporate Culture If Necessary, but Do It Quickly"; "Shift Turnaround Tactics: End the Cost-Cutting; Search for Revenue") drains much of the drama from what, as Garr demonstrates, is a rousing business story. Slater does a credible job explaining IBM's shifts in the design and marketing of mainframes and in the conceptual changes the company underwent in moving to Web-based business, but that story is available in more detail from Garr. (Sept.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Customer Reviews & Comments
Listen, my children, and you shall hear the incredible saga of how IBM nearly died and was revived by Lou Gerstner. Robert Slater tells the tale of IBM's turnaround after it nearly sank under the weight of institutionalized arrogance and failure to heed advancements in the industry it had dominated. Gerstner broke company tradition, fired employees who believed they had a sinecure, slashed a decade-old bureaucracy, and switched IBM's focus from products to solutions. This action portrait shows a man smart enough and tough enough to rebuild an empire. The book's lessons are artfully woven into the fabric of Gerstner's personal story and IBM's corporate history. We [...] recommend this book to any high level executive whose organization needs a revolution or to any businessperson who wants a juicy reminder of what it takes to win the war of independence.
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Saving Big Blue: Leadership Lessons and Turnaround Tactics of IBM's Lou Gerstner
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Price: $0.46
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