Is he talking about the future or the past?: "I.B.M Chief Gerstner Recalls Difficult Days
at Big Blue
By STEVE LOHR
In hindsight, success tends to look
easy, even predictable. That's as
true in business as it is in sports,
politics or other fields. Yet things
often look decidedly more unnerving
from the vantage point of the
executive on the firing line.
In a lengthy interview last week,
Louis V. Gerstner Jr., the chairman
of I.B.M., talked mostly about a
management reorganization that the
company announced on Monday.
But Mr. Gerstner, who is often portrayed as blunt, gruff and seemingly
arrogant, also candidly described his early, uncertain days at I.B.M. --
when he arrived as an outsider suddenly in charge of a corporation that
was both an American icon and in deep trouble.
After he took over in 1993, Mr. Gerstner ran the company for more than
a year in a style he called "survival mode."
"We had to cut $9 billion a year in expenses. We had to bring the
company back, literally, from the brink of death. We had to deal with
cultural and personal tragedies that resulted. And we had to reassert that
we were for real in the marketplace. That was a very centralized,
personalized leadership and organizational style. It was focused on the
short term, and it was very intuitive."
"So it was a benevolent dictatorship," he continued, "with me as the
dictator and hoping -- just hoping -- that I was getting some good advice
from my colleagues who knew a heck of a lot more about I.B.M. and
this industry than I would ever know." |
