In the Words of Great Business Leaders

by Fenster, Julie M.

• ISBN13: 9780471348559
• ISBN10: 0471348554
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-10-22
• Publisher: Wiley

Summary

Brilliant, practical, obsessed with the day-to-day details of running a company-all are characteristics of the greatest business leaders of our time. This book reveals remarkable insights into these men and women, teaching timeless lessons about business, money, and even human nature. This book also features thorough background information on each leader, telling the stories of their struggles to succeed, their triumphs, and how their various experiences-both good and bad-formed their business philosophies. From the consummate salesmen. . . like William Wrigley, Jr., who started a soap business in the late 1800s with only $32 to his name and by 1922 was selling ten billion sticks of gum per year. To hustling hard workers. . . like Edwin Land, president of Polaroid-which may have been the first start-up company in history to get $750,000 out of Wall Street on a promise of inventing things for which there was no market. To self-made successes.. . . like John D. Rockefeller, who never raised his voice or made cutting remarks, but left no doubts about his power and became one of the richest men in the country. And of course the bosses.. . . like Harvey Firestone, whose early days as a traveling salesman gained him valuable lessons that would serve him well as he created the Firestone Tire and Rubber Company-which, thanks to Firestone, would weather the Great Depression without even having to consider reducing its dividend. In the Words of Great Business Leaders delivers enlightening, surprising, and motivating information for business readers of all industries. In the Words of Great Business Leaders presents the accumulated experience of twenty business legends, in their own words. Each leader provides inspiring and motivating wisdom that runs the gamut from investing to setting priorities to making the most of opportunity.

Author Biography

JULIE M. FENSTER is an author and business historian who has written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and American Heritage magazine. She has also been a columnist for Audacity, Forbes’s magazine of business history.

Table of Contents

Introduction	v
PART I Talk About Convincing: SALESMEN	1	(76)
International Business Machines Corp.	1	(27)
Thomas J. Watson Sr.
William Wrigley Jr. Co.	28	(22)
William Wrigley Jr.
Carnegie Steel	50	(27)
Andrew Carnegie
PART II No Stone Left Unturned: HUSTLING HARD WORKERS	77	(66)
Wal-Mart	78	(14)
Sam Walton
United Artists	92	(16)
Mary Pickford
Polaroid Corp.	108	(18)
Edwin Land
Columbia Broadcasting System	126	(17)
William S. Paley
PART III The Thoughts that Count: SELF-MADE SUCCESSES	143	(82)
Standard Oil Co.	144	(30)
John D. Rockefeller
Ford Motor Co.	174	(20)
Henry Ford II
Madame C.J. Walker Manufacturing Co.	194	(12)
Madame C.J. Walker
Bank of America, Transamerica	206	(19)
A.P. Giannini
PART IV The Buck Stops: BOSSES	225	(86)
Firestone Tire & Rubber Co.	226	(24)
Harvey Firestone
Getty Oil	250	(18)
J. Paul Getty
General Motors	268	(22)
Alfred P. Sloan Jr.
Hewlett-Packard	290	(21)
David Packard
PART V No Matter What Everyone Else Is Doing: MAVERICKS	311	(56)
Southwest Airlines	312	(16)
Herb Kelleher
General Foods	328	(14)
Clarence Birdseye
Pepperidge Farm	342	(10)
Margaret Rudkin
Turner Broadcasting System	352	(15)
Ted Turner
Sources	367	(20)
Acknowledgments	387	(2)
Index	389