Saving Big Blue: Leadership Lessons & Turnaround Tactics of IBM's Lou Gerstner

"There's been a lot of speculation on when I will deliver a vision. The last thing IBM needs right now is a vision. What it needs right now are tough-minded, market-driven, highly effective strategies." - Lou Gerstner, 1993. SAVING BIG BLUE is the spell-binding saga of how Lou Gerstner resurrected IBM from an all-but-certain death into a textbook example of corporate turnaround wizardry. How he, by infusing a sense of urgency into a company which had begun to equate aggressiveness with dishonor, led Big Blue from an $8 billion loss in 1993 to a $3 billion profit in 1994--an unprecedented $11 billion+ turnaround!

Written by world-renowned corporate biographer Robert Slater, SAVING BIG BLUE packs instant impact. It presents numerous leadership secrets and success maxims, then looks inside each to reveal management insights that can be applied to situations of any size or type. For example:

"Sweep Aside the Old Corporate Culture if Necessary, But Do It Quickly" - Gerstner's focus was absolute. When it came to cleaning house, even his own brother wasn't protected.

"Set High Expectations: Don't Settle for Mediocrity" - Gerstner couldn't understand, and wouldn't tolerate, lack of enthusiasm. He made it clear he wouldn't accept second best--and that rewards awaited the winners. "Listen to Customers--They Know Best What They Need"

- Relive the legendary Chantilly meeting, where Gerstner invited the Chief Information Officers of IBM's 200 largest customers to meet with--and confront--the new IBM chief.

"You're never done. And when you think you're done, you're in trouble." - Lou Gerstner, 1998. Lou Gerstner's rescue of IBM is one of the world's most inspiring--and instructive--corporate success stories.

Filled with page after page of lessons that can be used in virtually any corporate environment, SAVING BIG BLUE takes an honest, inside look at how Gerstner stressed service, propelled IBM into the Internet revolution, and continues the job of to restoring IBM as the world's most powerful corporation. It provides a step-by-step blueprint for achieving success in today's turbulent corporate world.

From the early 1950s into the late '80s, IBM was the computer industry. Not only that, IBM was, to many, industry itself. It consistently set the standard for corporate performance and profitability, both in the U.S. and worldwide. But that all changed in a strange, swift, and brutal way. IBM--which had fiddled while Microsoft and Intel created a firestorm in the personal-computer world--lost money for three consecutive years in the early '90s. The decision to allow Microsoft to control PC software and Intel to supply the microprocessors (they're both companies IBM could've easily bought out early in the game) came back to bite IBM on its bloated blue butt. And its no-layoffs policy, though admirable, meant the company kept a workforce of more than 300,000, making decisions at a glacial pace while other companies nimbly jumped from one new market to the next.

All that changed when Lou Gerstner was named CEO of IBM in 1993. Gerstner had already led turnarounds at American Express and RJR Nabisco, and, as Saving Big Blue details, he proved to be the right man for the job. Gerstner started by changing the company's funereal dress code and eventually redirected the company to provide computer services rather than just computers. Saving Big Blue makes for interesting reading as a case study, but also provides a blueprint for any manager attempting to turn around a business. --Lou Schuler