Good2Work - Leaders' Stories

How Andrey Kosogov Joined Alfa Via Newspaper Ad

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2008-07-21T03:54:00+04:00

I came to Alfa in 1992 via the newspaper ad. There were no headhunters at that time in Russia so a vacancy was announced in the Moscow News. I was going to Kiev by train...

Sergei Petrov: Overturned Values

Maria Pikalova — 2008-07-21T01:58:00+04:00

One of our subdivisions once had several automobile transporters with the new cars on the route Viborg - St. Petersburg. Suddenly one of the trailers capsized right on the road. It seemed to be nothing more than an annoying accident...

Vladimir Skvortsov: How I provoked a crisis to avoid a deeper one in the future

Maria Pikalova — 2008-07-21T01:18:00+04:00

One of our company’s local branches was falling behind target for a long time. It did not fulfill the plan. We were not satisfied with results but wanted to avoid tough measures...

The "Ten Hot Dogs" Strategy of Ingvar Kamprad

Anton Murad — 2008-07-07T17:15:00+04:00

In 1995 the IKEA furniture store started selling hot dogs at five kronor each, as opposed to the usual price of ten to fifteen kronor. This investment was at once successful, and today it contributes to the growing restaurant and food sector by turning over 1.6 billion kronor in 1997, and alone answering for exports from Sweden amounting to 700 million kronor ($87 million).

How HP chose human oriented philosophy and succeed

Anton Murad — 2008-07-03T18:08:00+04:00

It is the tradition of treating every individual with consideration and respect and recognizing personal achievements. This sounds almost trite, but Dave [co-founder Packard] and I honestly believe in this philosophy... The dignity and worth of the individual is a very important part, then, of the HP Way...

How Steven Spielberg Got His First Job

Anton Murad — 2008-06-26T09:44:19+04:00

I began by making 8 and 16mm films, some for $15 apiece and some for $200. You can't excuse yourself by saying, "Well, I can't raise the money to make the short film to get into the front door and show my work." It's not expensive to make little movies, even if they're in Super-8 and done with a Kodak Ektasound camera you've borrowed from a friend...

How Lou Gerstner Got IBM To Dance

Anton Murad — 2008-06-19T06:50:05+04:00

The author says that IBM's problems, challenges, complexity and culture are unique, and the fixes he applied are unlikely to be easily transferred. The answers to the question of how Gerstner saved IBM, the major business decisions, are known. What's less understood is how he managed to change a culture that he generously describes as "inbred and ingrown"..

How Ingvar Kamprad Laid The Basis of The IKEA concept

Anton Murad — 2008-06-12T10:54:42+04:00

Out of long talks through the night with Sven Göte about how we were to get out of this vicious circle – lower price, worse quality – the idea grew of trying a permanent display or exhibition of our furniture. People could go to the display, see the furniture for themselves, and compare the quality at different price levels...

How Michael Dell Decided to Start His Own Business

Anton Murad — 2008-06-04T23:11:28+04:00

Traditionally, in the computer industry, a manufacturing company built computers, which were then distributed to resellers and dealers who sold them to businesses and individual consumers. In the early days, companies like Apple and IBM sold their products through computer dealers because they needed the leverage to gain nationwide sales...

How Dell Made More Money than His School Teacher and Learned to Segment the Market

Anton Murad — 2008-05-29T00:10:56+04:00

When I was sixteen, I got a summer job selling newspaper subscriptions to The Houston Post. At the time, the newspaper gave its salespeople a list of new phone numbers issued by the telephone company and told us to cold call them. It struck me as a pretty random way of approaching new business...

Brad Bird: Rats should crawl or how to deal with creative employees

Anton Murad — 2008-04-18T19:21:14+04:00

One of the guys challenged me. He said, “I want to know why you’re doing this.” Now, I had gone into this film reluctantly. It’s not what I was looking to do after The Incredibles. And there was a part of me that wanted to say, “Because I’m the director, that’s why. Do you want to take this problematic thing over?”. But I stopped..

How Fred Deluca Found Success By Way of the Submarine Sandwich

Anton Murad — 2008-04-16T18:35:00+04:00

DeLuca took advantage of the lack of quick-service chains to cater to customers anywhere, anytime. Known for its freshly baked sandwiches, Subway has been baking its own bread at its very store everyday since 1983. DeLuca even designed Subway's bread machine to ensure the quality of its bread as a healthy alternative to traditional fast food.

Vadim Asadov: Playing Chess with Yourself

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-11-24T19:50:00+03:00

Several times I found myself in a situation when it seemed that only a miracle could save a project. And sometimes it is really better to close it down, than to regret money, time and efforts spent, hope to drag it up to success by one more “ultimate” investment. It is a very difficult choice for me each time, because I always have money...

How Sergey Petrov left the Soviet Army to start his own business

Elias Zinenko — 2007-11-17T23:56:00+03:00

Now Sergey Petrov is the principal shareholder of the Russia's largest car distributor and retaier. He is at the list of the Russian Forbes. In 1980s he was making successful career as a Soviet Air Forces officer. Once a situation occured that made him to think about change...

Maxim Donde: Successful Demotion

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-11-17T23:50:00+03:00

The time passed, but the person we hired did not show the expected results. The problem had to be solved, so I spoke openly to him: “You have to move to lower position with all due consequences or...

How Boris Volpe Had Not Agreed With His Bosses

Elias Zinenko — 2007-10-31T06:00:07+03:00

In the 90s I was working as a regional manager in Siberia for a large American FMCG company. We were to launch a sales motivation program from scratch. American managers from the headquarters showed me a special matrix and told me they had introduced a successful salespersons motivation system based on it in several countries. Although I was a Dr.Sc.Math. I couldn't understand the matrix...

Vadim Goryainov: The Road to Movie Business

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-27T19:08:28+04:00

Up to the time I left the publishing house Prof-Media I had worked at that company for 8 years, made several successful deals and possessed all the necessary attributes for starting my own business: experience, market knowledge, reputation, money...

Igor Salita: The Price of the White Label

Elias Zinenko — 2007-10-27T10:05:39+04:00

There is no better motivation for a sales manager than a widely accepted product. And nothing is worse than a product which does not sell. A good sales person will not work for any salary if he can’t sell, because lack of good sales means lack of joy and drive for him...

How Gerstner Supported an Employee Who Was Regarded as a Misfit, and It Payed Off

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-25T13:43:21+04:00

Jerry Welsh had been a professor of Slavic languages, particularly Russian, and his avocation was ultra-marathon running. He was known around American Express as "Wild Man Jerry," and his expertise was in his gut understanding of the consumer spending psyche...

How Pierre Omidyar Found The Most Effective Way to Solve Disputes Between eBay Users

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-25T13:04:31+04:00

Initially, users of Pierre Omidyar's Auction Web (later he named it eBay) e-mailed him whenever they had complaints, wanted to ask questions, or otherwise wanted to comment about the site...

How Dee Hock Acted When the Owner Did not Keep his Word and Refused to Share Profit

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-25T12:10:45+04:00

Loss of the job was a crushing experience. Perol and I were friendless in a massive city we hated, breathing air so polluted it seared the eye and blotted out everything beyond a few blocks...

How Nordstrom Saved Family Business Giving “Nice People” the Freedom to Dump the Rules

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-25T11:07:00+04:00

As the 21st century dawned, American retailer Nordstrom was in trouble. Its sales had slowed down and its stock prices had declined. Nordstrom's board of directors even considered merging with another retailer or selling the company...

Vadim Asadov: Parting with a star

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-23T22:30:30+04:00

Some time ago I had to fire a highly qualified programmer from one of my projects. He was not an ordinary person at all, and it was not easy to communicate with him, but I could put up with all these difficulties...

How Steve Jobs Hired the Key Man for the iPod Project

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-23T21:36:09+04:00

Winter of 2001. The hardware guy, Tony Fadell had worked on developing a number of devices at General Magic (a company started by some of the original Mac team members) and later at Philips. After Philips, he set out on his own and tried to shop around the idea...

How Lou Gerstner Made His First Steps as the IBM Boss

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-20T12:40:18+04:00

In less than thirty days, the incoming CEO of IBM, Lou Gerstner, should have to introduce himself to tens of thousands of skeptical IBMers worldwide, many worrying whether they would have a job by year's end; face angry, perplexed, and demanding shareholders at the annual meeting...

How Sammons Saved Rite Aid through Giving Its Employees the Feeling that They Are Valued

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-20T12:00:19+04:00

When Mary Sammons joined Rite Aid in December 1999, the company appeared to have no future. In the fall of 1999, the company was condemned for its aggressive marketing of pharmaceutical products and other consumer-unfriendly practices...

How Dee Hock Plunged into the Ocean to Pursue the Offended Important Partner

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-19T10:16:44+04:00

The staff had bad news. Bernard Sue, head of Carte Bleue, had been roughly handled by some of the proponents of the name change. He had angrily announced he was returning to France on the next flight, would no longer participate in the meeting...

How Sergey Brin and Larry Page Hired Erich Schmidt, Not Wishing To Hire Anybody At All

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-19T10:14:33+04:00

Two venture firms Kleiner Perkins of John Doerr and Sequoia Capital of Michael Moritz that had invested $25 million in Google in 1999 had gotten nothing in return, as they saw it, except frustration and headaches from the Google Guys...

How Rudolph Giuliani Learned to Start with Small Things and Achieve the Larger Result

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-19T10:03:53+04:00

…When I became mayor, I was dealing with a failing operation. Suffice it to say that even devoted Gotham-boosters had started to regard their hometown as ungovernable. It was an attitude summarized by an October 1993 joint New York Times and WCBS poll in which 62 percent of New Yorkers said life had worsened over the previous four years...

Vadim Goryainov: A Film Director’s Revolt

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-18T21:42:27+04:00

I remember one incident that happened when I was working on my first picture Asiris Nuna. It was a fantasy piece for children based on the novel by Sergey Lukyanenko. Oleg Kompasov, the director of the film, is undoubtedly a very talented person. And like all the creative people he is too easily carried away…

How Welch Personally Learned a New Method to Apply It at GE

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-16T20:49:00+04:00

In the mid of 1990-s a friend told Jack Welch about a new method of making a quantum increase in inventory turns in manufacturing operations. Relatively few business leaders back then understood what a powerful tool faster inventory turnover...

How Michael Dell Learned to Delegate

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-16T11:10:33+04:00

The whole thing was one big experiment. I learned many valuable lessons along the way. Take delegation, for example. Since I had been a college student, I was used to a schedule that allowed me to sleep late. When...

How “Finance For Little Folks” Helped Welch to Turn GE Credit into Big GE Capital

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-11T02:44:17+04:00

When Jack Welch became a sector executive in 1977 he looked at GE Credit Corp. as at one of the most promising sectors. Like plastics, it was well out of the mainstream, and he sensed it was filled with growth potential...

Igor Salita: Revolution in Mars

Elias Zinenko — 2007-10-11T01:09:09+04:00

“He is a dreamer”, said someone. “He knows nothing about our business. We have been working for 5 years to achieve today’s distribution level, and now he wants to triple it only in year and a half!” “He’s just nuts”, said another one. “We should get rid of him as fast as we can. Otherwise there'll be a trouble.”

How ‘New Boss’ Andrey Yanovsky Came to Agreement with the Informal Leader and Kept the Whole Team

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-10T04:10:35+04:00

In the end of the 1990s I was appointed general manager of a large global company’s regional office. The sales department was headed by a man who had done a lot for the organization’s successful development and significant growth of the organization...

Sergey Petrov: Firing Softly

Elias Zinenko — 2007-10-09T23:21:46+04:00

...I realized I had to part with that man. Reluctantly, I started to prepare for my discussion with him in which he had to be told he must leave the company. I wrote a list of his recent wrongdoings. But even though there was a long list of strong reasons supporting his mistakes, such evidence did not take it easier when it came time to fire a human being.

Vladimir Skvortsov: Building a Team

Maria Pikalova — 2007-10-09T17:31:40+04:00

When I began working at AlphaStakhovaniye insurance company in april 2002 it was going through a very important and difficult period. Just before I came in 2001 the company was formed through a merger of its two predecessors...

How Andrey Kosogov Formed a New Team When No Investment Professionals Were Available in Russia

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-10-04T12:17:01+04:00

In 1994 the Russian stock market began to go upwards for the first time, and the most part of the Alfa Capital team decided to leave the company. Perhaps they thought...

How Ricardo Semler Fired a Tough Leader

Maria Pikalova — 2007-09-02T19:54:09+04:00

At Semco there were two fighting groups of executives – adherents of tough and soft management approaches . CEO of the company Ricardo Semler tried to find a compromise because he understood that this controversy impedes development and growth. But at one of the traditional executive meetings an unpleasant accident happened...

Gleb Arkhangelsky: How talking to my boss helped me understand that my hobby is my vocation

Maria Pikalova — 2007-08-07T07:04:35+04:00

The moment of appearance of the vocation in my life was a project of producing field mushrooms which made me very bored. I came to a president of the bank to bid farewell. I told him that I do not like this project, that I am not interested and lost my motivation...

Igor Salita: How I Had to Investigate a Robbery

Elias Zinenko — 2007-07-30T05:05:20+04:00

In the mid-90s when Pepsi was about to open its new regional representative office in Petrozavodsk, I decided to test a revolutionary new strategy concerning the company’s distribution system. Rather than continuing to use independent distributors, I proposed to open Pepsi’s own offices with our own sales teams...

How Andrey Yanovsky Moved from a Global Corporation to a Young Russian Company

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-07-26T16:24:29+04:00

Quite recently, only some years ago career and top position in a large international company have been a dream of life for almost any Russian manager. But at a certain point of time just a few years later more and more managers began to move to the young, fast growth oriented Russian businesses. I could feel the reason of such changes in managers’ preferences basing on my own experience...

Igor Salita: The Risky Appointment

Elias Zinenko — 2007-07-23T14:29:56+04:00

...I decided to offer Alexei a new, much more creative position in sales. That was a double risk: Alexei didn’t have sales experience, and my bosses along with HR department opposed this appointment. They told me “Come on, he’s strictly a logistics specialist,he has no sales experience. How is he going to build the corporate sales system?”

How Resignation of a Key Executive Made Andrey Kosogov Reconsider the Whole Business

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-07-21T18:25:39+04:00

In the end of February 2006, CEO of Alfa Capital Anatoly Milyukov announced that he was going to leave. Most of other key executives decided to quit together with him. It meant that we had to form a new team...

How Dee Hock Took Up “Retirement on the Job”

Maria Pikalova — 2007-07-13T12:33:20+04:00

After sixteen years of unorthodox management and unblemished results, the sheep, by the standards of industrial age command-and-control organizations, was a failure. In truth, those with whom the sheep battled and lost were not without merit.

How Jeff Bezos Chose His Own Business instead of Successful Career as an Employee

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-07-13T12:31:04+04:00

When Jeff Bezos told David Shaw, his employer of that time, he wanted to quit the job and start his own business, Shaw pointed out some of the risks...

How Dee Hock “Borrowed” Bank Executives to work under Clerical Employees Supervision

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-07-10T20:06:31+04:00

...There remains an immense problem to which we have no solution. More than a hundred thousand mailers are ready to receive newly embossed NBC BankAmericards. Each card must be proofread against the printed mailer, hand-inserted, and bundled for delivery to the post office. It must be done in three days. It is far beyond the capacity of the small staff of the card center...

How Art Levinson Didn’t Give Way to Panic and Produced a Billion Dollar Blockbuster

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-19T22:12:02+04:00

On March 14, 2003, hundreds of angry Wall Street analysts converged on The Pierre hotel in New York and demanded answers from Genentech CEO Art Levinson...

How Rudolf Giuliani Became "America's Mayor" on 9/11/2001

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-19T11:50:00+04:00

Mayor of NewYork City Rudolf Giuliani gained national attention for his leadership role during and after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center...

How Steve Jobs Was Fired From Apple and Entered His Life’s Best Period

Elias Zinenko — 2007-04-16T10:48:45+04:00

We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation — the Macintosh — a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired...

How Lou Gerstner Used His McKinsey Consultant Experience in IBM

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-10T13:26:53+04:00

After joining IBM Lou Gerstner started from opinion polling about the company’s strengths and weaknesses. In addition he sought advice from three important financial analysts who tracked IBM for Wall Street; Dan Mandresh from Merrill Lynch, Steve Smith from Paine Webber, and Steve Milunovich from Morgan Stanley...

How Dee Hock Invented the New Credit Card Common Worldwide Name with All His Staff Help

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-04-09T15:24:13+04:00

In 1973, it became apparent that continuing proliferation of names for the card could hinder growth of the system. At the time, the only common worldwide identity was the blue-white-gold bands design. The product had a different name in every country...

How Walton Was ‘Kicked out of Town’ by Landlord who Wanted to Give His Store to a Son

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-09T10:10:39+04:00

"My landlord, the department store owner, was so impressed with our Ben Franklin's success that he decided not to renew our lease—at any price—knowing full well that we had nowhere else in town to move the store..."

How Lou Gerstner Fired an Executive Who Could Not Make Unpopular Decisions

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-06T19:46:00+04:00

Lou Gerstner hadn't been at IBM long enough to deliver any major pronouncements. But more red ink undoubtedly meant more layoffs. The rightsizing priority on the CEO's short list of initiatives meant that 25,000 and as many as 40,000 IBMers would lose their jobs by year's end...

How Hock’s Boss Let Him Work Full Time in Public Interest Retaining his Position as VP

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-04-05T20:26:36+04:00

"Mr. Carlson, I'm in trouble. When I spoke up at the meeting in Columbus I had no intention of getting so involved. I agreed to serve on the committee with the thought of setting things in motion and stepping aside. Problems are much worse than...

How Sam Walton in His Early Days Learned One of the Leadership Secrets

Elias Zinenko — 2007-04-05T15:27:00+04:00

I had decided I wanted to be president of the university student body. I learned early on that one of the secrets to campus leadership was the simplest thing of all...

How Hock Saw Spontaneous Order out of Chaos Fighting at Crisis Night with Office Machines

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-04-05T13:56:17+04:00

We faced with major problems and no margin for failure. One hundred thousand card mailers in huge rolls arrived today, along with special machinery for feeding them into computer printers and cutting and folding them as they emerged...

How IBM Board Member Jim Burke Persuaded Gerstner to Put His Career At Stake

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-05T12:37:38+04:00

From 1990 to 1993, IBM shareholders saw nearly $6 billion in equity evaporate as the stock plunged by some thirty percent. In his final years the company's chairman and CEO, John Akers, cut IBM's workforce by a quarter, closing ten plants and trimming manufacturing capacity by forty percent...

How Pierre Omidyar Created a Web Cite to Help His Girlfriend and It Grew into eBay

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-05T12:35:05+04:00

While living in the San Francisco Bay Area and working at General Magic Pierre Omidyar met and became engaged to Pamela Wesley, a graduate student in biology. One night at dinner his girlfriend mentioned an old hobby, collecting and trading Pez candy dispensers...

How Gerstner Listened to a Retired IBMer’s Advice and Hired Sales Specialists

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-04T20:01:00+04:00

In early July of 1993, Lou Gerstner met with Sam Albert, a longtime IBMer, now in his sixties, who had retired in 1989 after thirty years with the company...

How Dee Hock Dug in the Garbage Cans to Find a Lost Deposit

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-03T21:14:16+04:00

One day stands out. I had been sent to a suburban office to learn branch banking. The manager turned me over to a crusty woman who was to train me as a teller. The very soul of courtesy to customers and a genius at her work, she was, nevertheless, of choleric disposition, not at all improved by...

How Jobs Enticed the President of PepsiCo To Become His CEO of Apple

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-03T20:59:34+04:00

In early March 1983, Steve Jobs decided that if the board wouldn't let him run Apple as CEO, the next best choice from his perspective would be someone he felt comfortable with, whom he might be able to control...

How Pierre Omidyar ‘Squeezes Himself Through the Door of Opportunity’

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-03T18:35:48+04:00

Pierre Omidyar’s father advised him, "Whatever future you're building… Don't try to program everything. Five Year Plans never worked for the Soviet Union," referring to the collapse of the nation in 1991. "In fact, if anything, central planning contributed to its fall"...

How Pierre Omidyar Brought Money into eBay by Hiring the Right Person as CEO

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-03T18:15:27+04:00

eBay was a growing company and to push it to further success, Pierre Omidyar and his partner Jeff Skoll decided to bring more money into the company by selling stock to the public. Selling shares to the public meant that Omidyar and Skoll had to be more professional about the company's leadership...

How Omidyar Received Financial Backing from an Investor without a Business Plan

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-03T04:11:17+04:00

In eBay Pierre Omidyar had created a small yet winning team devoted to its colleagues and its customers. However, in order for eBay to grow and prosper, the company needed financial backing from outside investors...

How Omidyar's Internet Service Provider Pushed Him to Make Money on His Hobby Project

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-03T03:58:14+04:00

When Pierre Omidyar worked as a software engineer for General Magic, an Apple offshoot, he tinkered at home with his own software creation, AuctionWeb (later he named it eBay). He allowed people to use its services for free...

How Steve Jobs Made Young Apple a Client of the High-Statured Ad Agency

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-02T15:20:19+04:00

Fall of 1976. Apple II was almost ready for the market. At the same time the semiconductor company Intel ran a clever, attention-getting advertising campaign that ignored the usual technical claims...

How Teenage Jobs Called Bill Hewlett to Order Parts and Got Summer Job

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-02T15:07:44+04:00

After Jobs’ family had moved to Los Altos, Steve, still being a teen, began a project to build a frequency counter - a device...

How Jeff Bezos Flew to Japan to Deliver a Customer’s Order

Maria Pikalova — 2007-04-02T13:34:22+04:00

Jeff Bezos spent plenty of money connecting the name Amazon.com with exceptional customer service in the minds of public...

How Andy Grove Met a Man Who Learned to Manage His Own Career

Elias Zinenko — 2007-03-28T19:16:35+04:00

'A story comes to mind. It was related to me by a business journalist who had interviewed me when this book was first published. This man used to be a banker. He was happily and productively employed until one day...

How Andy Pearson at Age 76 Transformed Himself into a New Kind of Boss

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-28T15:28:48+04:00

Andy Pearson was a high-visibility executive, having been a senior director of McKinsey, then head of PepsiCo for nearly 15 years, driving revenues from $1 billion to $8 billion. He was known for his skills at bringing people down to earth, from any altitude. His chief weapons at the time were fear, surprise, and a fanatical devotion to the numbers...

How Pearson Helped Disgruntled COO to Become Tricon’s Most Productive Top Executive

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-28T14:31:00+04:00

Aylwin Lewis, chief operating officer at Tricon Global Restaurants Inc., started working with the new chairman Andy Pearson at the moment he joined the company. He was the first to point out that Pearson has lost none of his business acumen - nor his ability to be blunt.

How Page and Brin Changed Web Ads Completely but Stuck to Their Principles

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-27T19:51:00+04:00

By the end of 1999 Google was averaging 7 million searches per day, but its revenue remained small. No wonder that the company’s investors insisted on paid ads. But Sergey Brin and Larry Page didn’t want ...

How Bill Hewlett Cut the Padlock off the Lab Stock Door on a HP plant

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-27T18:22:00+04:00

The faith that HP has in its people is conspicuously in evidence in the corporate "open lab stock" policy. The lab stock area is where...

How Google Guys Solved the Problem of Google’s Presence in China

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-25T10:19:22+04:00

In 2002 Chinese government decided to shut down all access to Google. Sergey Brin was no expert on international diplomacy. So he ordered a half-dozen books about Chinese history, business, and politics and splurged on overnight shipping...

How Schultz Talked to 242 Potential Investors and 217 of Them Said “No”

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-25T10:09:04+04:00

When in 1982 Howard Schultz went to Italy he took note of the coffee bars that existed on practically every block. He learned that they not only served excellent espresso, they also served as meeting places...

How Steve Jobs Talked Bill Gates into Investing in Apple

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-24T07:41:25+03:00

January 1997. Steve Jobs came back to Apple as “informal advisor” and one of his first actions in that role was to accompany Gil Amelio, Apple’s CEO of that time, on a diplomatic mission to Microsoft to meet with Bill Gates...

How Steve Jobs Broke Macintosh Keyboard Yearning to Restore Apple in His Own Way

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-03-24T07:37:49+03:00

Not long before Steve Jobs’ second coming to Apple in 1996 he was giving a talk to The Stanford Graduate School of Business’ High Tech Club at the home of a student. For three hours he sat in the lotus position...

What Made Branson Start His First Enterprise And Become An Entrepreneur

Elias Zinenko — 2007-03-22T00:09:40+03:00

At quite a young age Branson decided to put school behind him and leave. ‘Perhaps partly because I was dyslexic I had to try to prove myself in other ways and, in fact, sometimes if you have a slight disability in life, you can then excel in other ways...'

How Bill Gates Learned To Be Alert To Bad News

Elias Zinenko — 2007-03-21T23:23:51+03:00

In the middle of 1990-es Microsoft invested heavily in interactive television expecting that the market would develop quickly. In collaboration with several telecom companies...

How Branson Appreciated Reality Show Participant’s Ability To Calculate Risk

Elias Zinenko — 2007-03-21T22:29:44+03:00

In 2004 Richard Branson made the Reality show ‘The Rebel Billionaire’. In the final episode Richard offered the winner Shawn Nelson a cheque for a million dollars or an option to toss a coin for an even bigger prize. Shawn was utterly embarrassed...

How Branson Spent A Night in Prison and Got Strongest Incentive to Make His Company Grow Fast

Elias Zinenko — 2007-03-21T22:15:14+03:00

In 1971 21-year-old Richard Branson happened to find an opportunity to avoid taxes, riding through UK and French customs with a van loaded with records. It helped to make about £5,000 more in profit than he could have done legally...

How Steve Jobs Hired a Star Salesman from IBM Just Showing Him a Monitor Stand

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T23:00:08+03:00

It was October 1986. Dan’l Lewin, the marketing honcho of Steve Jobs’ new company Next, needed to recruit a new vice-president of sales...

How Jack Welch Turned Meetings with Wall Street's Analysts into Intellectual Duels

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T17:49:54+03:00

On December 8, 1981, Jack Welch delivered his big message on the "New GE" in front of Wall Street's analysts. It was his first public statement on where he wanted to take GE...

How Jack Welch Won the GE CEO Race by Doing What He Thought Was Right

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T16:41:04+03:00

In December 1977 Jack Welch was one of five sector executives, who had been publicly identified as candidates for new GE’s CEO. The succession process was thick with politics...

How Welch Put a Right Person to Head GE Medical Business and Won over Competitor

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T13:15:12+03:00

Vice president of GE’s medical division, Julian Charlier, had a grandiose idea every minute but wasn't much into following up on them. After several conversations Jack Welch decided that Charlier would be better back in Europe at another company. But medical division needed a new leader...

How Brin and Page Retained Control Over Google After First Big Outside Investment

Kate Zakomurnaya — 2007-03-20T12:25:17+03:00

In the spring of 1999 two star angel investors of Silicon Valley Kleiner Perkins led by John Doerr and Sequoia Capital of Michael Moritz decided to invest in Google. It was exactly what Sergey Brin and Larry Page needed because...

How Branson Launched Virgin Records as a Shop and Then as a Record Lable

Elias Zinenko — 2007-03-20T12:01:49+03:00

In 1971 Virgin Mail Order Records, Branson’s thriving business was ruined by the strike of the Post Office workers. People couldn’t send cheques to the company and it couldn’t send records...

How Jack Welch by Hard Work Won over Product Flaw That Nearly Ruined His Career

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T03:47:09+03:00

When GE was already building a new plant for its new plastic Jack Welch who was in charge of this project found out that the product had a serious flaw...

How Branson’s Virgin Group Went Public and Then Got Back Private to Save Its Reputation

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T03:44:00+03:00

In a bid to attract more money for the further development Virgin made its shares publicly traded in 1986. The stocks sold good but it was a hard challenge to Richard Branson...

How Jack Welch Used Bad Example Method to “Kick” a Top Performer When Needed

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T03:40:34+03:00

Once Jack Welch inspected GE’s R&D sector in India he was impressed with what he have seen there. But when he has met the head of R&D sector on annual executive meeting he was surprised to receive from him a low evaluation of his people in India...

How Welch after a Serious Accident Learned about Importance of Encouragement

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T03:37:39+03:00

In 1963 early in Jack Welch’s career at GE he was in charge of experiments with a chemical process. He was leading the team of engineers which was bubbling oxygen through a highly volatile solution in a large tank...

How Jack Welch Put His Superior on Trial Period and Learned about Differentiation

Maria Pikalova — 2007-03-20T03:29:27+03:00

In 1961 Jack Welch has been working at GE for a year as an engineer when his boss handed him a $1,000 raise. But then he found out that he got exactly what all his colleagues received. He showed best performance and thought that he deserved more than the “standard” increase...