Recently, I happened to read a very interesting book by the same name. It was exciting for me because it concerned the company that also happened to be the first company I worked for - IBM.
IBM had been the powerhouse inventor for decades, and its not wrong to say that it had invented the computer industry around it. But by 1992, IBM was losing cash, making losses, and was fast on its way to extinction. Its flagship product, the mainframe S/390 was not selling much, and was rapidly giving way to smaller, PC-Centric products. In the midst of this mayhem, the CEO was given the marching orders.
And Louis Gerstner took over.
"Who says elephants can't dance?" is a wonderfully candid story of the guy who came from RJR Nabisco (often derided in IBM as the Cookie guy) and turned the "Big Blue" from Deep Red to Deep Black. Lou describes his reasons for taking up the job (he accepted the job because he felt his job in his then current company, RJR Nabisco was not safe anymore), his experiences when he moved in as the CEO of IBM (how, on his first day at work, he was stranded outside a building with a card reader at the door, and could not go in, because he had not been issued a badge by IBM Security by then) and his attitude of taking inputs from everyone who mattered, including the management, engineers and customers, and maintaining notes in each meeting.
An awesome read for everyone.
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2 comments:
Sure elephants can dance, let me know if you wanna see one :)
Always willing to see elephants dance. If anyone wants to come over and dance, write to me, and I'd give my address, and if someone so far away, please make a video of it and send it over.
Enjoy the dance.
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