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FORTUNE The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time: How Apple, Ford, IBM, Zappos, and others made radical choices that changed the course of business.
Decisions equal success--nothing happens until one is made. Businesses make millions of decisions every day. But once in a great while a leader makes a truly game-changing decision that shifts not only the strategy of a single company but how everyone does business. These big decisions are counterintuitive-they go against the conventional wisdom. In hindsight, taking a different direction may seem easy, but these bet-the-company moves involve drama, doubt, and high tension. What made Apple's board bring back Steve Jobs to the company? How did Johnson & Johnson decide to recall every bottle of Tylenol after a poisoning scare that involved only a small batch of the drug? What made Henry Ford decide to double the wages of his autoworkers, and how did that change the American economy for the next century?
Here management consultant Verne Harnish, the CEO of Gazelles, and Fortune's editors provide the background stories behind the greatest business decisions of all time. In this fully original book, you'll get a glimpse into the thought processes leading up to these groundbreaking moments and will learn how the decisions have shaped the thinking of today's top leaders. The book also contains an insightful foreword by management guru Jim Collins, the author of Built To Last and Good To Great, which explains the importance of decision making in creating a successful company.
ADVANCED PRAISE FOR FORTUNE Greatest Business Decisions
"CEOs make thousands of decisions every year, but only a few of them have dramatic impact on a company's brand, performance, and culture. IBM knows something about those types of 'big bets.' This book is a concise look at some of those big decisions and the C-suite moves that separated winners from the competition." - Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman and former CEO, IBM
"A great resouce! Learning about how others make great decisions can help you make great decisions! A fascinating, practical history that can change the way that you make decisions. Required reading for decison-makers- at all levels!" -Marshall Goldsmith, named the No. 1 Leadership Thinker in the World by Thinkers50, is a consultant and author of the New York Times bestsellers MOJO and What Got You Here Won't Get You There.
"When you look at the best business decisions that have been made throughout the years, a clear pattern emerges: The best decisions require not only great insight, but courage and commitment as well. The greatest business leaders are the ones who focus their energy not solely on profits, but on improving people's lives. These important lessons from our past, which this book brings to light, are more relevant than ever today." -Bill Ford, Executive Chairman, Ford Motor
208 pages, Hardcover
First published October 2, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
July 20, 2019
Case studies overview. Counterintuitive works big, occasionally.
Q:
The research evidence on that is very clear—that the leaders who ended up setting things in place that produced extraordinary results over time, and a series of great decisions over time, really were very comfortable saying “I don’t know” until they knew. (c)
Q:
... what’s your greatest hedge against uncertainty? Having people who can adapt to whatever the mountain throws at you. (c)
Q:
Google now lets employees spend a chunk of their time on their own projects, some 50 years after McKnight at 3M set the precedent. (c)
Q:
...Bill Gates’ decision to take a week off once or twice a year to read and think (a habit that helped Microsoft shift its strategy a number of times)... (c)
Q:
My company, Gazelles, developed a conceptual framework called the Four Decisions, which emphasizes the main categories of decisions that all companies must get right. They are: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. It soon became clear that it didn’t make sense to stuff each decision into one of these convenient boxes. (c)
Q:
Nevertheless, I do have my top five favorites. Here they are, in reverse order:
• NO. 5: GENERAL ELECTRIC Jack Welch’s decision to go all-in and fund Crotonville, a first-class training center, set the tone for thousands of businesses to create corporate universities. That decision also helped develop a generation of leaders at GE who have gone on to run countless other companies.
• NO. 4: SAMSUNG: The decision by this South Korean electronics giant two decades ago to launch an unprecedented sabbatical program, placing star employees in far-flung places around the globe for a year, continues to drive Samsung’s prominence as a top 20 brand.
• NO. 3: WAL-MART Sam Walton’s decision to launch a simple Saturday morning meeting, for all employees, in his first store has led to 50 years of rapid decision-making, creating one of the largest companies in the world.
• NO. 2: APPLE The decision to bring back Steve Jobs as CEO of the company he founded, after a decade-long absence, resulted in “the best work of his life” and the most valuable public company in the world.
• NO. 1: FORD Henry Ford’s decision to double the wages of his employees meant that workers were no longer viewed as drones, to be paid as cheaply as possible, but instead as valuable assets. In turn, workers could now afford the very products they were producing. That triggered a consumer revolution that would eventually help create the wealthiest nation on earth. (c)
Q:
THERE’S A DEEP IRONY ABOUT momentous business decisions. It stands to reason that because they are, indeed, momentous, they would come about after intense analysis and hours or weeks of impassioned debate. Yet sometimes the opposite is true: The decisions that make or break companies are often cobbled together on the fly. Why? Because no one can come up with anything better. (c)
Q:
Over a drink (Grey Goose and soda for Hsieh, beer for Mossler), they decided—again without spreadsheets or McKinsey consultants—to make yet another momentous decision. (c)
Q:
“The lesson,” says Swinmurn, “was if you can take something standard and make it feel personalized, that’s a great customer experience.” (c)
Q:
“A FLAT PREDICTION I’LL MAKE is that you will not see the name ‘Tylenol’ in any form within a year,’’ Jerry Della Femina, the Madison Avenue advertising genius, told the New York Times on Oct. 8, 1982. “I don’t think they can ever sell another product under that name. There may be an advertising person who thinks he can solve this, and if they find him, I want to hire him, because then I want him to turn our water cooler into a wine cooler.’’
It was a week after an awful discovery had petrified the nation: Someone had put lethal doses of potassium cyanide into Extra Strength Tylenol capsules sold in retail stores. Seven people in the suburbs of Chicago had died. Firefighters and police officers had driven around neighborhoods with loudspeakers, warning people not to take the drug. Terrorism wasn’t the term most people used for the crime in that pre-9/11 era, but the entire country was certainly terrified of Tylenol. It had been a huge hit for Johnson & Johnson—the bestselling painkiller in the U.S., with 35% of the market. But now many people shared Della Femina’s judgment: Tylenol was doomed.
And yet … it wasn’t. When the Times spoke to Della Femina less than a year later, he said, “I was absolutely wrong. I’m really happy I was wrong.” The paper noted that Compton Advertising, the agency that handled Tylenol, had sent Della Femina a water cooler filled with wine. “I drank the wine and toasted them,’’ Della Femina said, adding, “I’m going to send them some loaves of bread. Let’s see what they can do with bread.”
How Johnson & Johnson saved Tylenol, and its corporate reputation, is a story that’s widely regarded as the gold standard of crisis management. It was simple in conception—do the right thing, transparently—and complex in execution, involving a recall costing more than $100 million, the introduction of tamper-resistant packaging. (c)
Q:
For nearly a century 3M has been one of the world’s most innovative companies, creating everything from sandpaper to masking tape to Post-it Notes to DVDs. Yes, its well-financed R&D labs had a lot do with that, but more important was a decision that many of today’s CEOs have lost sight of: Give your employees time to daydream. The landmark decision, made in 1948, to allow workers to spend 15% of their time on their own projects has kept the company’s innovation engine humming. It led to the corollary that 30% of revenue must come from products less than five years old, a legacy that is still alive today. In 2009, even in the midst of the financial crisis, 3M launched more than 1,000 new products. Getting the most out of such a policy, however, is easier said than done. What manager wants to give up control? Here’s how 3M manages its 15% rule and why some of today’s most creative companies, including Google, have followed 3M’s lead. (с)
Q:
It’s the early 1980s, and you’ve created an entirely new concept in an old industry: a liquid hand soap called Softsoap. Looming is Procter & Gamble, a 100-ton gorilla able to crush you the minute the new concept gains traction. What do you do? You buy time. A small Minnesota business made the risky decision to buy up the entire U.S. supply of plastic pumps—some 100 million units—effectively blocking P&G from launching a competitive product. It found a bottleneck in the process and then controlled it. Apple has used this formula repeatedly by identifying a critical component in key devices and locking up the supply for a significant period, notably the flash memory drives used in its iPods. In the 19th century John D. Rockefeller purchased the company that made the iron rings used to make oil barrels. By controlling this small but critical component of the oil industry, he thwarted competitors. The Softsoap story is all the more remarkable because it is about an ant outmaneuvering an elephant. Here’s how the company did it. (c)
Q:
“To get to market with something that’s truly different is never easy, particularly when there are big incumbents that could choose to imitate you,” says Hugh Courtney, dean of the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University and author of 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World. Taylor’s success with Softsoap shows a high degree of what Courtney calls “allocentrism,” or the ability to understand others and their propensity for action. That instinct gave Taylor the leverage to turn the tables on his rivals. (c)
Q:
The only problem was that many store managers wanted to put Softsoap in the health and beauty section; Taylor fought to get it placed right next to the bar soap so that customers would understand that it was an alternative to sloppy, traditional soap. (c)
Q:
The research evidence on that is very clear—that the leaders who ended up setting things in place that produced extraordinary results over time, and a series of great decisions over time, really were very comfortable saying “I don’t know” until they knew. (c)
Q:
... what’s your greatest hedge against uncertainty? Having people who can adapt to whatever the mountain throws at you. (c)
Q:
Google now lets employees spend a chunk of their time on their own projects, some 50 years after McKnight at 3M set the precedent. (c)
Q:
...Bill Gates’ decision to take a week off once or twice a year to read and think (a habit that helped Microsoft shift its strategy a number of times)... (c)
Q:
My company, Gazelles, developed a conceptual framework called the Four Decisions, which emphasizes the main categories of decisions that all companies must get right. They are: People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash. It soon became clear that it didn’t make sense to stuff each decision into one of these convenient boxes. (c)
Q:
Nevertheless, I do have my top five favorites. Here they are, in reverse order:
• NO. 5: GENERAL ELECTRIC Jack Welch’s decision to go all-in and fund Crotonville, a first-class training center, set the tone for thousands of businesses to create corporate universities. That decision also helped develop a generation of leaders at GE who have gone on to run countless other companies.
• NO. 4: SAMSUNG: The decision by this South Korean electronics giant two decades ago to launch an unprecedented sabbatical program, placing star employees in far-flung places around the globe for a year, continues to drive Samsung’s prominence as a top 20 brand.
• NO. 3: WAL-MART Sam Walton’s decision to launch a simple Saturday morning meeting, for all employees, in his first store has led to 50 years of rapid decision-making, creating one of the largest companies in the world.
• NO. 2: APPLE The decision to bring back Steve Jobs as CEO of the company he founded, after a decade-long absence, resulted in “the best work of his life” and the most valuable public company in the world.
• NO. 1: FORD Henry Ford’s decision to double the wages of his employees meant that workers were no longer viewed as drones, to be paid as cheaply as possible, but instead as valuable assets. In turn, workers could now afford the very products they were producing. That triggered a consumer revolution that would eventually help create the wealthiest nation on earth. (c)
Q:
THERE’S A DEEP IRONY ABOUT momentous business decisions. It stands to reason that because they are, indeed, momentous, they would come about after intense analysis and hours or weeks of impassioned debate. Yet sometimes the opposite is true: The decisions that make or break companies are often cobbled together on the fly. Why? Because no one can come up with anything better. (c)
Q:
Over a drink (Grey Goose and soda for Hsieh, beer for Mossler), they decided—again without spreadsheets or McKinsey consultants—to make yet another momentous decision. (c)
Q:
“The lesson,” says Swinmurn, “was if you can take something standard and make it feel personalized, that’s a great customer experience.” (c)
Q:
“A FLAT PREDICTION I’LL MAKE is that you will not see the name ‘Tylenol’ in any form within a year,’’ Jerry Della Femina, the Madison Avenue advertising genius, told the New York Times on Oct. 8, 1982. “I don’t think they can ever sell another product under that name. There may be an advertising person who thinks he can solve this, and if they find him, I want to hire him, because then I want him to turn our water cooler into a wine cooler.’’
It was a week after an awful discovery had petrified the nation: Someone had put lethal doses of potassium cyanide into Extra Strength Tylenol capsules sold in retail stores. Seven people in the suburbs of Chicago had died. Firefighters and police officers had driven around neighborhoods with loudspeakers, warning people not to take the drug. Terrorism wasn’t the term most people used for the crime in that pre-9/11 era, but the entire country was certainly terrified of Tylenol. It had been a huge hit for Johnson & Johnson—the bestselling painkiller in the U.S., with 35% of the market. But now many people shared Della Femina’s judgment: Tylenol was doomed.
And yet … it wasn’t. When the Times spoke to Della Femina less than a year later, he said, “I was absolutely wrong. I’m really happy I was wrong.” The paper noted that Compton Advertising, the agency that handled Tylenol, had sent Della Femina a water cooler filled with wine. “I drank the wine and toasted them,’’ Della Femina said, adding, “I’m going to send them some loaves of bread. Let’s see what they can do with bread.”
How Johnson & Johnson saved Tylenol, and its corporate reputation, is a story that’s widely regarded as the gold standard of crisis management. It was simple in conception—do the right thing, transparently—and complex in execution, involving a recall costing more than $100 million, the introduction of tamper-resistant packaging. (c)
Q:
For nearly a century 3M has been one of the world’s most innovative companies, creating everything from sandpaper to masking tape to Post-it Notes to DVDs. Yes, its well-financed R&D labs had a lot do with that, but more important was a decision that many of today’s CEOs have lost sight of: Give your employees time to daydream. The landmark decision, made in 1948, to allow workers to spend 15% of their time on their own projects has kept the company’s innovation engine humming. It led to the corollary that 30% of revenue must come from products less than five years old, a legacy that is still alive today. In 2009, even in the midst of the financial crisis, 3M launched more than 1,000 new products. Getting the most out of such a policy, however, is easier said than done. What manager wants to give up control? Here’s how 3M manages its 15% rule and why some of today’s most creative companies, including Google, have followed 3M’s lead. (с)
Q:
It’s the early 1980s, and you’ve created an entirely new concept in an old industry: a liquid hand soap called Softsoap. Looming is Procter & Gamble, a 100-ton gorilla able to crush you the minute the new concept gains traction. What do you do? You buy time. A small Minnesota business made the risky decision to buy up the entire U.S. supply of plastic pumps—some 100 million units—effectively blocking P&G from launching a competitive product. It found a bottleneck in the process and then controlled it. Apple has used this formula repeatedly by identifying a critical component in key devices and locking up the supply for a significant period, notably the flash memory drives used in its iPods. In the 19th century John D. Rockefeller purchased the company that made the iron rings used to make oil barrels. By controlling this small but critical component of the oil industry, he thwarted competitors. The Softsoap story is all the more remarkable because it is about an ant outmaneuvering an elephant. Here’s how the company did it. (c)
Q:
“To get to market with something that’s truly different is never easy, particularly when there are big incumbents that could choose to imitate you,” says Hugh Courtney, dean of the College of Business Administration at Northeastern University and author of 20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World. Taylor’s success with Softsoap shows a high degree of what Courtney calls “allocentrism,” or the ability to understand others and their propensity for action. That instinct gave Taylor the leverage to turn the tables on his rivals. (c)
Q:
The only problem was that many store managers wanted to put Softsoap in the health and beauty section; Taylor fought to get it placed right next to the bar soap so that customers would understand that it was an alternative to sloppy, traditional soap. (c)
July 15, 2018
Enjoyable read on some of the best business decisions ever made. Would have preferred a more in depth look at some of the stories though.
February 16, 2014
An interesting, light read. A nice collection of business stories from across sectors (retail, tech, airlines etc.) and across function (marketing, management, manufacturing etc.)
My favorite story was on how Softsoap conquered its newly-created market for liquid soap - by buying out all the plastic pumps available in the market. It was also interesting to tales such as Henry Ford's legendary decision to suddenly double his worker's wages, Boeing's "big bet" on the commercial aircraft market, and Bill Gates' decision to take a week off every year to "think".
Title maybe a bit exaggerated, not sure if this is in fact the definitive list of "greatest" business decisions of all time, but it's a nice set of examples nonetheless!
My favorite story was on how Softsoap conquered its newly-created market for liquid soap - by buying out all the plastic pumps available in the market. It was also interesting to tales such as Henry Ford's legendary decision to suddenly double his worker's wages, Boeing's "big bet" on the commercial aircraft market, and Bill Gates' decision to take a week off every year to "think".
Title maybe a bit exaggerated, not sure if this is in fact the definitive list of "greatest" business decisions of all time, but it's a nice set of examples nonetheless!
December 30, 2014
This book would definitely fall under my infotainment category, i.e. I may have a couple of "did you know?" (a la a 10-year old ) stories to tell but possibly haven't got much more out of it than that. So three stars for light entertainment and two stars as a useful business book.
The book is written by a number of Fortune magazine's editors and so each story has the feel of reading an article from the magazine. I think a number of the decisions in the book could have had poor, or simply insignificant, results in which case they could have just as easily been forgotten or written about with derision. The authors did not go into detail about the alternatives of the decisions or the various paths that the decisions could have taken.
The book is written by a number of Fortune magazine's editors and so each story has the feel of reading an article from the magazine. I think a number of the decisions in the book could have had poor, or simply insignificant, results in which case they could have just as easily been forgotten or written about with derision. The authors did not go into detail about the alternatives of the decisions or the various paths that the decisions could have taken.
January 24, 2017
I think that this book is ok. It's like a really long blog post. The amount of research seems to be pretty surface level. It is a good collection of case studies. The book is an easy and quick read which is the main reason it's attractive. I can definitely see how this book is spawned from a magazine. Would not recommend but am not upset that I read it.
December 27, 2014
I love case studies. And this has a number of strong case studies. Most of them will be known to avid readers of business books. However, a refresher is always good. It doesn't go into enough detail of them in each case, but a good read nonetheless.
February 9, 2018
The author might've overstated the impacts these decisions had on the companies' long-term success while failing to mention couple others. But informative case studies nonetheless and an enjoyable read.
December 11, 2018
Solidly mediocre.
I cannot recommend this book. It is filled with fluff and empty stories that go nowhere. With all the great business books available, you are better suited spending your time reading something of value.
I cannot recommend this book. It is filled with fluff and empty stories that go nowhere. With all the great business books available, you are better suited spending your time reading something of value.
December 28, 2021
Some of the business strategies described in this book would be considered borderline-illegal in many countries (e.g. blocking the bottleneck of a production cycle like Softsoap did, or inspecting the private lives of Ford employees), while a couple of them are blatantly obvious (e.g. Samsung’s and Toyota’s strategies would seem like the most obvious thing to do for any industrialist who had as much resources available as they did), but the book sure does make a good point on how all the strategies described have succeeded in reality.
March 25, 2025
49 down, 251 to go.
Genre - Self Help
The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time
It is a compilation of various business decisions made by people that led to the success in their businesses.
Lessons:
1. Behind most great decisions is a combination of great timing and luck.
2. If you can take something standard and make it feel personalized, it'll become a great experience for customers.
3. Reveal all you know fast and do everything necessary to take care of your customers.
4. The hardest thing for leaders is to keep themselves and their companies relevant.
Genre - Self Help
The Greatest Business Decisions of All Time
It is a compilation of various business decisions made by people that led to the success in their businesses.
Lessons:
1. Behind most great decisions is a combination of great timing and luck.
2. If you can take something standard and make it feel personalized, it'll become a great experience for customers.
3. Reveal all you know fast and do everything necessary to take care of your customers.
4. The hardest thing for leaders is to keep themselves and their companies relevant.
October 13, 2019
Learned about a lot of key, bold decisions. Allready knew about the return of Jobs to Apple because that is celebrated all the time. Two key ones I did not know about were Henry Ford making the move to give high wages, or Boeing making the bet on commercial jets. Very interesting, and I enjoy Verne's writing style.
September 28, 2022
I enjoyed the stories, but would have appreciated slightly more proof beyond a title's declaration that these were the best decisions of all time. Some seemed less of a weighed decision than a "we have no choice."
March 18, 2018
I would recommend this book to everyone who are into business and at the managerial level.
June 30, 2021
A collection of bite sized stories from corporate history some great, some ok, nothing bad.
July 3, 2023
Actually much better than I thought this would be.
January 10, 2024
Nice read about business practices in various industries.
January 1, 2017
Thoroughly enjoyable
I love books like this. Well written and informative covers what the author's believe are the top business decisions made. With historical and economic context it is a really.enjoyable read.
I love books like this. Well written and informative covers what the author's believe are the top business decisions made. With historical and economic context it is a really.enjoyable read.
September 10, 2016
This book was a set of historical case studies, surprisingly global in scope, that described and reflected upon key decisions made by major companies throughout the past hundred years. They are well presented and interestingly written... Lots of great fodder for entrepreneurs. Exceptional read.
June 5, 2013
Short book, short chapters, easy to read. Excellent elementary book for anyone in business or anyone interested in history.
This isn't a history of the companies covered, only a briefing of the actual situation, the decision, and the result at each of these companies
Likely, most readers will be familiar with some of these stories, but probably not all of them. The earliest story covers Eli Whitney at the end of the 18th century. Tech companies are disproportionately represented: Apple, Samsung, IBM, Intel, HP, and Microsoft. Of course, Johnson & Johnson's handling of the Tylenol tampering event merits a chapter. I don't think it spoils anything to list the remaining companies in the book: retailers Wal-Mart, Nordstrom, and Zappos; automakers Toyota and Ford; and other companies large and small including 3M, Boeing, GE, Softsoap, and Tata Steel. If you don't know all of these stories, the book is a worthwhile read.
This isn't a history of the companies covered, only a briefing of the actual situation, the decision, and the result at each of these companies
Likely, most readers will be familiar with some of these stories, but probably not all of them. The earliest story covers Eli Whitney at the end of the 18th century. Tech companies are disproportionately represented: Apple, Samsung, IBM, Intel, HP, and Microsoft. Of course, Johnson & Johnson's handling of the Tylenol tampering event merits a chapter. I don't think it spoils anything to list the remaining companies in the book: retailers Wal-Mart, Nordstrom, and Zappos; automakers Toyota and Ford; and other companies large and small including 3M, Boeing, GE, Softsoap, and Tata Steel. If you don't know all of these stories, the book is a worthwhile read.
February 22, 2015
A biography of great business decisions! This book is entertaining and well written.
Verne and his colleagues explore some of the greatest business decisions of the last 200 years. Companies that faces critical inflections points in their future and made a bold decision or adopted a bold approach that transformed the way they worked and rippled across other companies and sectors.
The book provides insights into the decisions and their background, and even contains two non-US businesses :-)
I would happily read a sequel with similar stories. My only request for a future edition would be to include a bibliography - 1-2 articles or books that provide further depth on the organisation, the decision and the decision-maker.
Verne and his colleagues explore some of the greatest business decisions of the last 200 years. Companies that faces critical inflections points in their future and made a bold decision or adopted a bold approach that transformed the way they worked and rippled across other companies and sectors.
The book provides insights into the decisions and their background, and even contains two non-US businesses :-)
I would happily read a sequel with similar stories. My only request for a future edition would be to include a bibliography - 1-2 articles or books that provide further depth on the organisation, the decision and the decision-maker.
December 16, 2016
A decent compliation of some of the best business decisions. Each recount is very brief, so those craving for a detailed insight would be disappointed.
I also have to add that the list is heavily skewed towards American businesses. Though I would not fault it too much given Fortune is an American company, a greater diversity of companies would have made it a better read.
Also, some of the decisions in my opinion weren't really that "great". For example, IBM and their decision to foster better relationship with customers doesn't really seem like something that warrants a place in this list. It seems the only reason for the inclusion of such instances was because of how renowned this companies already are.
I also have to add that the list is heavily skewed towards American businesses. Though I would not fault it too much given Fortune is an American company, a greater diversity of companies would have made it a better read.
Also, some of the decisions in my opinion weren't really that "great". For example, IBM and their decision to foster better relationship with customers doesn't really seem like something that warrants a place in this list. It seems the only reason for the inclusion of such instances was because of how renowned this companies already are.
February 11, 2014
Surface level case studies on wise business decisions, what prompted them, and what resulted from those choices. Lots of household names included as well as many never heard of by most, exploring several monumental business moves that not only were huge and, often times, risky for their respective companies and CEO's. The studies lay out as well the far-reaching impact these decisions have made on those companies and the even larger industries each may represent. Good recommendation for anyone interested in business, finance, or MBA background.
June 11, 2017
Good book, easy to read, interesting for anyone interested in/doing business.
Studies 18 cases where companies had to take radical decisions and how some of them grew to the companies we know today. Features Apple, IBM, HP, Boeing and many more.
Simply shows you the situation they've found themselves in, what timeframe (18th century-present) they're operating in and how they responded to the problems or changed the course of business.
Studies 18 cases where companies had to take radical decisions and how some of them grew to the companies we know today. Features Apple, IBM, HP, Boeing and many more.
Simply shows you the situation they've found themselves in, what timeframe (18th century-present) they're operating in and how they responded to the problems or changed the course of business.
February 28, 2015
This was the first book I have read about business decisions. It was a great overview of the most famous business decisions ever made. Whole books are not written on some of the decisions. This book piqued my interest and I now have a great greater desire to read similar books, ones of more depth.
August 9, 2015
This book made me understand lots of business elements and how wise instant actions at crisis time make a huge difference in the companies' long life.
Amazing stories ... And how those decision affected our current life.
I believe every person should read this book, and it deserves to be read twice at least.
Amazing stories ... And how those decision affected our current life.
I believe every person should read this book, and it deserves to be read twice at least.
February 10, 2017
Each chapter is the story of a great business decision. They're all counterintuitive and changed not just that company, but have become widely followed since. Hearing the stories of each is a both interesting and insightful. Plus it's really well written. Great leadership book--and not just for business leaders.
July 25, 2018
A very well edited and compiled book, this is a collection of stories from various Fortune magazine articles. I didn't know about the Henry Ford, the HP or the Eli Whitney, but all the stories were very insightful and very fun to learn and read. The book is organized in very easy to read chapters, but once you read one, you want to read them all.
August 29, 2013
Interesting, quick read. Reinforces the idea that the best business decisions are, at heart, about people - employees and customers - not profit. If you make choices that enhance your relationships with either employees or customers (or, ideally, both) profit will often follow.
March 23, 2013
This was a major disappointment. We get little in the way of insights about what makes a good decision, What we do get is a shallow journalistic report on a decision, It's mostly narrative.
March 18, 2013
Primer on great companies (some not any more) for readers new to business books. Unfortunately, lacks detail or focus. Main interest was to read about two stories I was actually around (employed at those companies) for.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews