Only the Paranoid Survive : How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company

Rating:
Summary: An exceptional management memoir. 4.5 stars
Review: ______________________________________________

Andy Grove, CEO of the phenomenally successful Intel Corp, is clearly
worth listening to on the subject of management. The "Wintel"
success story is well known. More harrowing was Intel's earlier self-
transformation from making memory chips to making
microprocessors.

How to steer an enterprise thru a major change in its business, per
Mr. Grove:

1) Figure out if a major change is imminent. If so, you're about to
enter what Grove calls "the valley of death".

2) Figure out how to deal with it. Largely (for CEOs), this involves
listening to your employees & doing your homework.

3) Set a new course, sell it to your company, and stick to it.

The "secret" to success here is identifying the oncoming crisis early &
reacting sensibly. He relates the story of Apple, a company with clearly
superior products - the Mac operating system, the first good laser
printer - completely missing the shift from proprietary to open
PC standards, and ending up as a niche player. John Sculley, then
Apple's CEO, acknowledged this crucial mistake years later. Groves
thinks Sculley knew this shift was happening , but wasn't able to
overcome Apple's "inertia of success". Curiously, this was pretty
much the same problem IBM had when PCs began displacing
mainframes. It's very hard for an organization to give up a strategy
that has been richly rewarded in the past.

In management, as in engineering, we often learn more from failures
than successes. Grove's case histories will make informative reading
for anyone in business. Not many of us are CEOs, but we'll all go thru
Grove's "strategic inflection points" in our careers.

Review copyright 1998 by Peter D. Tillman
--
Dumb cover blurb dept - "This terrific book is a dangerous book. . ." -- Peter Drucker.