This is not my autobiography. I can't think of anyone other than my children who might want to read that book (and I'm not 100 percent sure they would, either). However, in the spirit of trying to provide some contextual background for my views, what follows is a brief historical perspective.

Lou Gerstner on the Turnaround

"Heading into IBM, I would have bet large sums of money that these frenetic early months would be the hardest work of my professional career. I would have bet wrong. What happened through the second half of the 1990s would determine whether IBM was merely going to be one more pleasant, safe, comfortable - but fairly innocuous - participant in the information technology industry, or whether we were once again going to be a company that mattered."

Gerstner on Strategy

"Good strategies start with massive amounts of quantitative analysis, hard, difficult analysis that is blended with wisdom, insight and risk taking. Truly great companies lay out strategies that are believable and executable. Good strategies are long on detail and short on vision."

Gerstner on Culture

"I came to see, in my time at IBM, that culture isn't just one aspect of the game - it is the game. In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value."

Foreword

Introduction

PART I-GRABBING HOLD

 1  The Courtship

 2  The Announcement

 3  Drinking from a Fire Hose

 4  Out to the Field

 5  Operation Bear Hug

 6  Stop the Bleeding (and Hold the Vision)

 7  Creating the Leadership Team

 8  Creating a Global Enterprise

 9  Reviving the Brand

10  Resetting the Corporate Compensation Philosophy

11  Back on the Beach

PART II-STRATEGY

 12  A Brief History of IBM

 13  Making the Big Bets

 14  Services--the Key to Integration

 15  Building the World's Already Biggest Software Business

 16  Opening the Company Store

 17  Unstacking the Stack and Focusing the Portfolio

 18  The Emergence of e-business

 19  Reflections on Strategy

PART III-CULTURE

 20  On Corporate Culture

 21  An Inside-Out World

 22  Leading by Principles

PART IV-LESSONS LEARNED

 23  Focus--You Have to Know (and Love) Your Business

 24  Execution--Strategy Goes Only So Far

 25  Leadership Is Personal

 26  Elephants Can Dance

PART V-OBSERVATIONS

 27  The Industry

 28  The System

 29  The Watchers

 30  Corporations and the Community

 31  IBM--a Farewell

APPENDICES

Appendix A--Employee Communications

Appendix B--The Future of e-business

Appendix C--Financial Overview

Index