Mean Business: How I Save Bad Companies and Make Good Companies Great Book

One of the best real life "this is what I did to save this company" case studies written. This one concerning Scott Paper and Al's ultimate success in selling Scott to Kimberly-Clark.

Love or hate Chainsaw Al Dunlap, he produced results using uncommon sense and by taking quick actions. Had Marissa Meyer followed just one-tenth of the insights in this book she could have saved Yahoo! Her failure to make any significant changes in the first month or two was my cue that she was destined to fail and I said so on many occasions. The same thing happened to Blackberry when Thorsten Heins was appointed CEO and stated, paraphrased, "I see nothing that needs to be changed." How stupid.

Yes, Al went on to apparently commit some accounting voodoo [plus more slight of hand in sales practices] at Sunbeam and was ultimately banned by the SEC from ever directing another publicly traded firm.

I am not sure what happen and we may never know all the facts.

It doesn't detract from the success story in "Mean Business" but should serve [perhaps] as another caution that absolute power corrupts absolutely.