Today I read Who Says Elephants Can't Dance, Louis Gerstner's account of how he came into IBM as they were on the brink of failure and turned the company around. The standard discliamer of course, is that I am currently employed by Big Blue. I read this book on the recommendation of one of my fellow IBMers, and was somewhat pleasently suprised by it.
So, if you didn't know already, IBM was a huge super-monopoly of Microsoftian proportions though the early years of computing (1950's-1970's) with their line of mainframes. The company got huge, everyone got conceited, and then all of a sudden PC's emerged. The arrogance and size of IBM quickly became it's downfall, and money started drying up and things got ugly.
Gerstner covers this in a little more detail as the introduction to his book, then breifly covers his courtship with the recruiters who convinced him to come to IBM, and finally jumps into his start at IBM.
The first half of the book covers his first year at IBM, and the changes that were introduced to help the company stop "haemorrhaging money". Some really great quips about the inane beaurocracy that was in place at IBM at the time, as well as the steps he instituted to keep the company together.
The second half of the book is composed of the later years of his tenure at IBM, and how he lead the company back to a position of leadership in the tech industry, including the incredible growth of IBM's Global Services division and it's role as the uber-integrator. Not nearly as much humor and "they did what!?" type moments in this half.
In summary, this book was a very quick read, and there were quite a few gems in there that got me laughing at my favorite multi-national evil corporate conglomerate. If you're currently one of the "kids" at IBM, you should check this out and get an understanding of what all those grey-haired folks in the office are talking about when they wax poetic about the "Good Ol' Days". If you're a long time IBMer, you should give this a read, then mumble something under your breath about "The Good Ol' Days", and resume sleeping in your office. If you've never worked at IBM, and you're not some management flunky, then don't bother picking this one up, you wouldn't get any of the jokes.
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