Sublime

AT&T’s savior was Theodore Vail, who became its president in 1907, just a few years after Millikan’s friend Frank Jewett joined the company.11 In appearance, Vail seemed almost a caricature of a Gilded Age executive: Rotund and jowly, with a white walrus mustache, round spectacles, and a sweep of silver hair, he carried forth a magisterial conf

I still, after a year’s experience, [am] just as firmly of the same belief that a decentralized organization is the only one that will develop the talent necessary to meet the Corporation’s big problems,

he wrote a series of historical essays and was among the first to depict Lincoln as “a towering figure, coping admirably with herculean tasks.” His perceptive diary, which he edited in his last years, remains one of the most valuable sources on the dynamics within the Lincoln administration.

Sloan turned GM into more than just a model for the car industry. His reorganization of the company ensured that day-to-day decisions were devolved to the managers of each division, but financial oversight was centralized, with each division reporting its results, and being allocated resources, in a standardized way. Just as Henry Ford had defined

When he wanted to size up a man quickly he loaded him with power. If the man took the least advantage of his new position he got some kind of warning, not from Henry Ford but from the least expected quarter. How he accepted the warning was what Henry Ford was watching. If he went to Ford to see if the warning was really coming from him, he would be

I therefore reactivated the Operations Committee and had placed on it all the general operating officers on the Executive Committee and the general managers of the principal divisions, thus making it the major point of regular contact between the two types of executives. The Operations Committee was not a policy-making body but a forum for the disc

But ever since that day I never felt particular concern about the Russian competition in the Ford product field.

Ever since it was founded, Ford Motor Company had shared some of its prosperity with its people. Employees who had been with the company for three years or longer received 10 per cent of their annual pay, and efficiency bonus checks were handed to executives and branch managers.

As for Kelleher’s own office, the architect had received specific instructions: no windows. Once word had spread that he had a windowless office, Kelleher explained, how could anyone dare jockey for an office with a better view? To further control new-office politics, his executive assistant, Colleen Barrett, now a corporate officer, banned departm