Power Point: Companies don’t stumble; people do
“The companies acquired the usual encumbrances of success–among them arrogance and bureaucracy–and they devised new ways to fail as well. Or, precisely, their executives did. Companies don’t stumble; people do. As Peter Drucker has said: ‘Every failure is a failure of a manager.’”
– Carol Loomis, Fortune senior editor at large, wrote this in a legendary 1993 cover story, “Dinosaurs?,” about General Motors (GM), Sears (SHLD), and IBM (IBM). The article is worth reading—or rereading—as these three companies’ fates have now materialized so dramatically. GM, in dire distress, is the worst-performing stock in the Dow 30. Sears, led by Eddie Lampert, is vying for relevance and recovery. Meanwhile IBM is the only bonafide turnaround since this 1993 analysis. It’s also one of the rare big-cap gainers in the stock market this year.
Journalism teacher and newspaper adviser at Palo Alto High School
- Nora Ephron’s Best Advice
- Power Point: Bigger isn’t always better
- What is Microsoft? CEO Ballmer seeks an answer
- Power Point: Google strikes at the core
- Guest Post: Starbucks goes to Rwanda
- Power Point: Look at the man in the mirror
- Nike’s big catch in retail
- Power Point: Women can just do it
- The “Gavinator” and Meg Whitman’s big money
- Recovery, reset, or economic “flip up”?
- Pattie, Great interview with Steve... More
- Steve is right about how much adverti... More
- Blankfein went on to say that this... More
- "Not a happy outlook." For who? Y... More
- Bing has potential. Unlike Live, Bin... More
- I think this article proves that Mone... More
- "Bing" is the sound something makes w... More
- Well, here's an idea to ease the tale... More
- While failure is clearly something th... More
- Brilliant phrasing of that opening qu... More





