Car Guys Vs Bean Counters

Author : Bob Lutz
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1591846226
Total Pages : 289 pages
Book Rating : 4.22/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Car Guys vs. Bean Counters written by Bob Lutz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-05-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “One of the most acute books about management and how com­panies work in practice that I have read in a long time. If anyone wants to know exactly how the U.S. auto industry got into trou­ble, here is your guide.” —John Gapper, FINANCIAL TIMES When Bob Lutz got into the auto business in the early 1960s, CEOs knew that if you captured the public’s imagination with innovative car design and top-quality crafts­manship, the money would follow. The “car guys” held sway, and GM dominated with bold, creative leadership and iconic brands like Cadillac, Buick, Pontiac, Oldsmobile, GMC, and Chevrolet. But then GM’s leadership began to put its faith in numbers and spreadsheets. Determined to eliminate the “waste” and “personality worship” of the bygone creative leaders, management got too smart for its own good. With the bean counters firmly in charge, carmakers, and much of American industry, lost their single-minded focus on product excellence and their competitive advantage. Decline soon followed. In 2001, General Motors hired Lutz out of retirement with a mandate to save the company by making great cars again. As vice chairman, he launched a war against the penny-pinching number crunchers who ran the company by the bottom line and reinstated a focus on creativity, design, and cars and trucks that would satisfy GM’s customers. Lutz’s commonsense lessons, combined with a generous helping of fascinating anecdotes, will inspire readers in any industry.

Author : Bob Lutz
Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 1101608080
Total Pages : 240 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Icons and Idiots written by Bob Lutz and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-06-04 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: When Bob Lutz retired from General Motors in 2010, after an unparalleled forty-seven-year career in the auto industry, he was one of the most respected leaders in American business. He had survived all kinds of managers over those decades: tough and timid, analytical and irrational, charismatic and antisocial, and some who seemed to shift frequently among all those traits. His experiences made him an expert on leadership, every bit as much as he was an expert on cars and trucks. Now Lutz is revealing the leaders-good, bad, and ugly-who made the strongest impression on him throughout his career. Icons and Idiots is a collection of shocking and often hilarious true stories and the lessons Lutz drew from them. From enduring the sadism of a Marine Corps drill instructor, to working with a washed-up alcoholic, to taking over the reins from a convicted felon, he reflects on the complexities of all-too-human leaders. No textbook or business school course can fully capture their idiosyncrasies, foibles and weaknesses - which can make or break companies in the real world. Lutz shows that we can learn just as much from the most stubborn, stupid, and corrupt leaders as we can from the inspiring geniuses. The result is a powerful and entertaining guide for any aspiring leader.

Author : Robert A. Lutz
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 256 pages
Book Rating : 4.11/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Guts written by Robert A. Lutz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1998-09-29 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides Chrysler's Senior Manager Bob Lutz's philosophy behind his "seven laws" of business, explaining how that can be applied to making changes, transforming an operation, and creating a successful company.

Author : George O. Carney
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 9780847680801
Total Pages : 324 pages
Book Rating : 4.00/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock 'n' Roll written by George O. Carney and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 1995 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The only anthology of its kind, this collection brings together classic and recent essays by thirteen leading geographers exploring American popular culture. The essays examine music, food, sports, politics, architecture, clothing, and religion within the context of five themes of cultural geography: region, diffusions, ecology, integration, and landscape. A list of suggested readings follows each section. Fast Food, Stock Cars, and Rock-n-Roll is an excellent text for introductory courses, appealing to students through its discussion of such topics as "grunge" rock, fast food, and blue jeans.

Author : Kathleen Battles
Publisher : U of Minnesota Press
ISBN 13 : 1452915083
Total Pages : 291 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Calling All Cars written by Kathleen Battles and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Calling All Cars shows how radio played a key role in an emerging form of policing during the turbulent years of the Depression. Until this time popular culture had characterized the gangster as hero, but radio crime dramas worked against this attitude and were ultimately successful in making heroes out of law enforcement officers.Through close analysis of radio programming of the era and the production of true crime docudramas, Kathleen Battles argues that radio was a significant site for overhauling the dismal public image of policing. However, it was not simply the elevation of the perception of police that was at stake. Using radio, reformers sought to control the symbolic terrain through which citizens encountered the police, and it became a medium to promote a positive meaning and purpose for policing. For example, Battles connects the apprehension of criminals by a dragnet with the idea of using the radio network to both publicize this activity and make it popular with citizens.The first book to systematically address the development of crime dramas during the golden age of radio, Calling All Cars explores an important irony: the intimacy of the newest technology of the time helped create an intimate authority—the police as the appropriate force for control—over the citizenry.

Author : Bill Vlasic
Publisher : Harper Collins
ISBN 13 : 006204222X
Total Pages : 375 pages
Book Rating : 4.24/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Once Upon a Car written by Bill Vlasic and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-10-04 with total page 375 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Once Upon a Car is the brilliantly reported inside-the-boardrooms-and-factories story of Detroit’s fight for survival, going beyond the headlines to chronicle how the country’s Big Three auto companies—General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler—teetered on the brink of collapse during the 2008 financial crisis. In a tale that reads like a corporate thriller, Bill Vlasic, who has covered the auto industry for more than fifteen years, first for the Detroit News and now for the New York Times, takes readers into the executive offices, assembly plants, and union halls to introduce a cast of memorable characters, many of whom are speaking out for the first time, including the executives who struggled to save their companies but in the end had to seek a controversial, last-gasp rescue from the U.S. government. Vlasic goes behind the scenes to portray the men at the top during Detroit’s last stand. Rick Wagoner, the CEO of General Motors, tried to turn around a dying company, only to be forced to resign as a condition of the government bailout. Bill Ford, great-grandson of the legendary Henry Ford, had the will to keep Ford alive but needed the guts to hire an unknown outsider, Alan Mulally, to transform the company before it crashed. At Chrysler, leadership was constantly changing as new owners tried in vain to fix the smallest of the beleaguered Big Three. And through it all, the president of the United Auto Workers union, Ron Gettelfinger, fought to save the jobs of the men and women who build American-made cars and trucks. This tale of an iconic industry in crisis is more than a big business drama and provides a rich, unvarnished portrait of how Detroit’s decline affected tens of thousands of workers and dozens of communities nationwide. The story moves from the gleaming corporate skyscrapers and massive auto plants to the halls of the U.S. Congress and into the Oval Office, where President Obama and his aides wrestled with how to keep General Motors and Chrysler from going out of business. Vlasic shows why the bailout worked, and how Detroit can succeed under new leadership and build automobiles equal to any in the world. Once Upon a Car tells a uniquely American tale of success, failure, and redemption. It is an important and illuminating chapter in an astonishing story that is still unfolding. And no one is more qualified to write it than Bill Vlasic.

Author : Bill Vlasic
Publisher : Wiley
ISBN 13 : 9780471497325
Total Pages : 382 pages
Book Rating : 4.20/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Taken for a Ride written by Bill Vlasic and published by Wiley. This book was released on 2000-09-01 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Tamara Palmer
Publisher : Hal Leonard Corporation
ISBN 13 : 9780879308575
Total Pages : 204 pages
Book Rating : 4.75/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Country Fried Soul written by Tamara Palmer and published by Hal Leonard Corporation. This book was released on 2005 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Offers an overview of "Dirty South" rap--a phenomenon centered around cities such as Atlanta, Miami, and New Orleans--covering such groups as The Neptunes, Timbaland, OutKast, Lil Jon, Ludacris, and Cee-Lo.

Author : Bryce G. Hoffman
Publisher : Three Rivers Press
ISBN 13 : 0307886050
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.57/5 ( download)

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Download or read book American Icon written by Bryce G. Hoffman and published by Three Rivers Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A riveting, behind-the-scenes account of the near collapse of the Ford Motor Company, which in 2008 was close to bankruptcy, and CEO Alan Mulally's hard-fought effort and bold plan--including his decision not to take federal bailout money--to bring Ford back from the brink.

Author : Rana Foroohar
Publisher : Currency
ISBN 13 : 0553447254
Total Pages : 402 pages
Book Rating : 4.55/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Makers and Takers written by Rana Foroohar and published by Currency. This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 402 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is Wall Street bad for Main Street America? "A well-told exploration of why our current economy is leaving too many behind." —The New York Times In looking at the forces that shaped the 2016 presidential election, one thing is clear: much of the population believes that our economic system is rigged to enrich the privileged elites at the expense of hard-working Americans. This is a belief held equally on both sides of political spectrum, and it seems only to be gaining momentum. A key reason, says Financial Times columnist Rana Foroohar, is the fact that Wall Street is no longer supporting Main Street businesses that create the jobs for the middle and working class. She draws on in-depth reporting and interviews at the highest rungs of business and government to show how the “financialization of America”—the phenomenon by which finance and its way of thinking have come to dominate every corner of business—is threatening the American Dream. Now updated with new material explaining how our corrupted financial sys­tem propelled Donald Trump to power, Makers and Takers explores the confluence of forces that has led American businesses to favor balance-sheet engineering over the actual kind, greed over growth, and short-term profits over putting people to work. From the cozy relationship between Wall Street and Washington, to a tax code designed to benefit wealthy individuals and corporations, to forty years of bad policy decisions, she shows why so many Americans have lost trust in the sys­tem, and why it matters urgently to us all. Through colorful stories of both “Takers,” those stifling job creation while lining their own pockets, and “Makers,” businesses serving the real economy, Foroohar shows how we can reverse these trends for a better path forward.