Review

Comeback

This inspiring book describes how seven CEO's took charge of stagnant or failing companies such as Continental Airlines, Compaq and Chrysler, and turned them into dynamic and highly profitable enterprises. The author makes many fascinating observations about the traits that enabled the CEO's to create these stunning turnarounds. But he identifies the single most critical one as an unswerving commitment to reality. "Finding the truth is the single most important thing a CEO can do," Puris declares.

Other factors include: setting challenging goals, hiring people with ability, the commitment to justice when giving rewards, formulating a clear vision, taking decisive action, fostering cooperation and promoting customer satisfaction.

Consider Gordon Bethune who was appointed CEO of Continental Airlines, a moribund company that everyone expected to go bankrupt. One of Bethune's outstanding qualities was his ability to essentialize that is, to look at a mass of seemingly unrelated facts and to identify, in the simplest terms, their common characteristics and the key actions that had to be taken to deal with them. In a whirlwind of carefully chosen actions, Bethune Replaced crucial executives, exited money-losing markets, made on-time performance a top goal, and rewarded all employees when on-time performance was high. Within three years the company went from over a $100 million loss to hundreds of millions in profits.

Michael Bonsignore's resuscitation of Honeywell Inc. was equally impressive. For four years Honeywell' s revenue had gone nowhere and management had concluded that further growth was impossible. Upon taking over, Bonsignore insisted that every division's performance be compared with that of its major competitors H e then communicated with the employees in every way possible in order to build their confidence. He drastically increased the training budget, supported those who championed change and introduced a profit-sharing program to reward improved performance. Especially critical was Bohsignore's ability to provide firm leadership and at the same time fully utilize the ability and knowledge of each employee . His policy was, "We will set the targets and you will tell us how you're going to achieve the targets." The result was a dramatic increase in company profitability and a near tripling of the stock price.

The principles described in this book are obviously relevant not only to turning around failing companies, but also to sustaining the growth of successful ones. This book is highly recommended for anyone who wants to see efficacious men in action.

(248 pages)

This review is courtesy of and copyright © by the Ayn Rand Bookstore.