Who say Elephants can't dance? - Louis Gerstner

• There was not a single indication in the artwork or other displays that this was a computer company. There was no computer in the [IBMs] CEO's office.
• It's not helpful to feel sorry for ourselves. I don't weant to see a lot of prophets of doom around here. I want can-do people looking for short-term victories and long-term excitement. There is not time to focus on who created our problems. I had no interest in that. We have little time to spend on problem definition. We must focus our efforts on solutions and actions.
• Five 90 days priorities: Cash to not run out of money / Profitable by 1994 as a signal to the world and employees / Customer strategy that we serve their interests / Finish right-sizing orga / Develop intermediate business strategy
• There was a huge executive administrative assistant program. Hundreds drawn from the ranks of the best and brightest of the up-and-coming managers. What they didnt do was interact with customers, learn the guts of the business, or develop leadership competencies.
• Powerful geographic fiefdoms with duplicate infrastructure in each country
• I stepped to the table and, as politely as I could in front of his team, switched off the projector. After a long moment of akward silence, I simply said, "Let's just talk about your business."
• I told the team that, effective immediately, the milking strategy was over and instructed them to get back to me with an aggressive price reduction plan
• I began by telling my audience that a customer was now running IBM
• Operation Bear Hug - each senior management team member was to visit a minimum of five of our biggest customers during the next three months. I asked that a one- to two-page report be sent to me and anyone else who could solve that customer's problem. When people realized that I really did read every one of the reports, there was quick improvement in action and responsiveness
• My 100 day plan
• Keep the company together
• Change our fundamental economic model
• Reengineer how we did business
• Sell underproductive assets in order to raise cash
• Turning around troubled companies... Whatever hard or painful things you have to do, do them quickly and make sure everyone knows what you are doing and why.
• Sooner is better than perfect
• With an eye to the old management committee, I also announced what the CEO would not do: It would not accept delegation of problem solving. It would not sit through presentation or make decisions for the business units. Its focus would be solely on policy issues that cut across multiple units.
• No institutional transformation takes place, I believe, without a multi-year commitment by the CEO to put himself of herself constantly in front of employees and speak in plain, simple, compelling language
• "Clearly what we have been doing isn't working. We lost $16 billion in three years. Since 1985, more than 175,000 employees have lost their jobs. The media and our competitors are calling us dinosaur. Our customers are unhappy and angry. We are not growing like our competitors. Dont you agree that something is wrong and that we should try something else?
• The market, over time, represents a brutally honest evaluator of relative performance, and what I needed was a strong incentive for IBM'ers to look at their company from the outside in.
• Executives should know they don't accumulate wealth unless the long-term shareholders do the same.
• put their own money into direct ownership of company stock. 
• "You have to have some skin in the game."
• I bought stock repeatedly on the open market in the early days, because I felt it was important to have my own money at risk.
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