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Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
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Author: Louis V. Gerstner Jr.
List Price: $27.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0060523794
Publisher: HarperBusiness (12 November, 2002)
Edition: Hardcover
Sales Rank: 2,528
Average Customer Rating: 3.3 out of 5
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Customer ReviewsRating: 5 out of 5
Leaping across the chasm - a WONDERFUL case study
Most MBA programs utilize case studies to one degree or another. As you work through them you develop mental habits of analysis that help you get to the nut of the case fairly quickly so you can get prepared for class. One of the problems is that most cases are oriented as marketing cases, or operations cases, or strategy, or finance, or organizational behavior, or accounting, or whatever cases. A few are used by multiple disciplines, but very few integrate all the management disciplines. This book is a terrific integrated case. I enjoyed it tremendously and feel I have learned a lot from it. What I enjoyed most was the way Mr. Gerstner demonstrated the way all the disciplines are important in leading a great corporation. And especially the difference between the emergency room behavior he had to engage in when he first joined the company and had to start the bleeding and the different emphases he had to have in transforming IBM into an organization that could thrive in today's marketplace while remaining a great corporation. I am glad to read about his emphasis on corporate culture while retaining a fierce focus on operations and backing strategy with constant, continuous analysis with hard numbers. All fueled with passion to win. I think this is a winning recipe. And it is very easy to write down, but almost impossible to really execute. Mr. Gerstner did a great job and we all owe him thanks for keeping IBM together and making it competitive once more. People who are angry that the old IBM is gone shouldn't blame Mr. Gerstner. The old IBM was dying and was going to be broken up. Finding the right markets for the organization to compete in and remain together was a bet not many would have made. Certainly, it is not likely that Mr. Gerstner made perfect decisions nor did the people who worked for him act with transcendent brilliance either. The point is not perfection; it is competing effectively, actively, and with some intelligence. Mr. Gerstner shows us how he and his team did that in the 1990s and I thank him for this great book that I encourage all students of business to read closely.
Rating: 5 out of 5
Gerstner wins with experience, insight, creativity, guts
I suspect none of the platoon of Gerstner-haters who submitted one-star reviews of this book has actually read it. Having lost the career niches they thought were safe, these discarded IBM-ers will say anything to get back at the man who let them go in the process of bringing an American institution back to vibrant health. Gerstner's drastic changes may have disrupted the lives of many employees, but far more would have suffered if IBM had continued down the road to dissolution he diverted it from. In this book Gerstner distills his insights into modern business imperatives in a clear, readable, lively style open to the vast majority of us citizens who do not subsist on electrons and silicon chips.
Rating: 4 out of 5
View from the top of IBM's recent adaptations
"Who Says Elephants Can't Dance" is the history of Louis Gerstner, Jr.'s tenure at IBM. Mr. Gerstner joined IBM at a critical time when sales were slumping and the behemoth of a company was laying people off almost every quarter. What they needed was someone who could turn the company around and take it to new heights. What they had was a complex bureaucracy that allowed little change and tended to support the continued decline of the company. Of course we all know now that Mr. Gerstner was able to change IBM and produce a viable thriving company able to compete in the world markets once again. This is the story of what happened from Louis Gerstner's own hand.Mr. Gerstner provides insight into his viewpoint of what was happening in the company and his own fears and concerns from before the day he was named CEO until his retirement in 2002. If you want to know what was happening at the top and what he was thinking as he went along, you will want to read this book. If you read and liked Lee Iococca's book on his turnaround of Chrysler you will find this book similar and also very interesting in its own right. A study in tough management and changing direction with a company that has its own momentum, "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance" is a recommended read.
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