Sublime

Malcom McLean sold his stock and quietly left the board of R. J. Reynolds Industries in February 1977. By all accounts, the marriage had not been a happy one. McLean was frustrated by the tobacco giant’s bureaucracy and bewildered by its repeated changes of strategy. Most of all, though, he was restless. “I am a builder, and they are runners,” McLe

hindsight, I would have started with our leadership team of five.

Because I wasn't a great manager—and I knew I wasn't—I said, "I'm organizing this company like McDonald's. Each restaurant is going to be managed by a few people, and they're going to have profit-and-loss responsibility. If they make a profit, they get to pocket half of it. If they make a loss, we're going to know who's responsible, and we're

The One Minute Manager.

Managing, by the former head of ITT, Harold Geneen.

Every really good, really experienced CEO I know shares one important characteristic: They tend to opt for the hard answer to organizational issues. If faced with giving everyone the same bonus to make things easy or with sharply rewarding performance and ruffling many feathers, they’ll ruffle the feathers. If given the choice of cutting a popular

Issue Identification There are two excellent ways that I know of to encourage people to identify the key issues in the company that need to be solved. The first: Have each person imagine that they are the CEO and ask themselves the question, “What are the most important issues (maximum three) for me to solve in the next ninety days?” Allowing peopl