Postcards
Power Point: Companies don't stumble; people do
July 3, 2008: 2:26 PM ET"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.
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Power Point: Do what unsuccessful people don't want to do
"One thing I've learned playing with people at the top of their game, from captains of industry to rock stars, is that they want to do the things that unsuccessful people don't want to do. They want the risks and the responsibility, whereas others want the comfort in mediocrity."
- David Feherty, CBS Sports golf analyst shared this with me in a conversation this afternoon, casting himself in the role of MORE
Jessica Shambora, Writer-Reporter - Jun 25, 2008 9:51 PM ETPosted in: CBS, David Feherty, Golf, Leadership by Geoff Colvin, Postcards, Power, Power Point, Success
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Fortune senior editor at large Pattie Sellers has written some of Fortune's most talked-about cover stories, including "Marissa Mayer: Ready to Rumble at Yahoo," "Oprah's Next Act," "Can Meg Whitman Save California?" "The $100 Billion Woman" (Melinda Gates), and "Remodeling Martha" (Martha Stewart). She has helped oversee Fortune's "Most Powerful Women in Business" package every year since its launch in 1998. Pattie is Executive Director of the Fortune Most Powerful Women Summit, the preeminent gathering of women leaders in business and beyond. She oversees MPW programs that enable women leaders to extend their influence and empower the next generation—such as Fortune MPW Entrepreneurs and the Fortune-U.S. State Department Global Women Leaders Mentoring Partnership. Beyond her Fortune duties, she is also developing Live Content across Time Inc. Pattie grew up in Allentown, PA, graduated from the University of Virginia, and started at Fortune in 1984. Her blog, Postcards, is about how power players lead, manage others, and navigate their careers.
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