Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround

Rating:
Summary: I wish the author had time to make those "connections".....
Review: One should start reading this book from chapter 27 "IBM- a farewell".
Here the author muses how he wished he had more time to make the connections from the old to the new.
I worked at IBM from 1992 through 2000 and I felt that this above failing of CEO had repercussions throughout the whole organization. IBM indeed became very successful company under his leadership but I often felt that while going after quarterly numbers we were missing the long term, big picture. We also were getting little soulless.

Was Lou's tenure good for IBM? In the short term: yes, but in the long run, we have to resort to famous words of Zhou Enlai which he used assessing French Revolution.."It is too soon to say."


Rating:
Summary: Valuable for the lessons
Review: Gerstner's tale of how IBM turned its behemoth-self around and is, today, still riding high, is a lesson for all students of enterprise. The valuable parts of the book are the processes Gerstner lists in the efforts to harness good parts of corporate culture (respect for individuals, devotion to excellence) and to minimize the harmful aspects of a hothouse atmosphere where stagnation is the inevitable result. The proof is in the pudding; companies that didn't follow these steps are stilled mired in their own tracks; IBM is flying. The author has a section on "knowing and loving your business." This is a fundamental that seems obvious, but it's forgotten so often with tragic consequences. IBM faced the brink of disaster and came back stronger than ever.

My favorite take-away phrase from this book was "Measure and Reward the Future--Not the Past." Powerful stuff. You may have heard all this before, but it bears repeating. Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Dances With Elephants
Review: IBM should thank its lucky stars that Louis Gerstner, Jr. was there to save the day. His strategic and complex scheme to save the country was utter genius. In his book, "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance", Gerstner explains how he took IBM by the throat and shook its economical and technological foundations until a dramatic metamorphosis occurred. I liked the fact that Gerstner went solo to write this book because that helped me to understand what he was thinking when he made his different choices. Everything from reintegrating the IBM management team to unveiling IBM's e-business idea was so precise in a book that lacks length (being under 300 pages long). This book will inspire anyone with the hopes of being management material. It's definitely worthy of a five-star rating.