Word: geneen
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...Colson, ITT Vice President Edward J. Gerrity Jr. had written to Agnew, an old friend from Army days: "Our problem is to get John Mitchell the facts concerning McLaren's attitude because . . . McLaren seems to be running all by himself." In a meeting between ITT President Harold S. Geneen and Presidential Assistant John Ehrlichman, Gerrity continued, Ehrlichman had "said flatly that the President was not enforcing a bigness-is-bad policy [against ITT], and that the President had instructed the Justice Department along these lines." This document, Colson noted, was embarrassing because it "tends to contradict John Mitchell...
Later in 1970 Ehrlichman wrote Mitchell of an "understanding" he had reached with Geneen. On May 5, 1971, Ehrlichman again wrote to Mitchell, alluding to the "agreed-upon ends" at the high level of the President and Mitchell in resolving the ITT case, and asking Mitchell whether Ehrlichman should deal directly with McLaren in the sensitive matter...
...Surprises. In 1959, two years after Behn's death, the leadership of ITT passed to Harold S. Geneen, a small, owlish man who was trained in accountancy, and seems to prefer hamburgers to French cuisine. Even so, Geneen cannot resist comparing himself to Behn: "He was a man of his time; I am a man of my time." Born in Britain 63 years ago, Geneen came to the U.S. at the age of one. A wizard with figures, Geneen began his career as a New York Stock Exchange page and rose from accountant to executive positions in such companies...
...Under Geneen, ITT has come to own some 260 companies in 86 countries. Crucial to his management is a system that can keep executives at meetings for up to ten days a month. The system is designed to avoid surprises. Ironically but predictably, the vaunted "no surprise" system produced shocks on the political front. Predictably, because most men who are trained to think in quantitative terms are insensitive to nuance and subtlety. Sampson fails to stress this inherent characteristic of business bureaucracies. He also fails to meet the challenge of Geneen's complex personality and conflicting drives...
...some ways, Geneen is close to genius: the management method he has imposed on ITT disciplines and tames territorial chieftains who might otherwise rebel and enables him to check the performance of a widely-almost wildly-diversified company. In other ways Geneen is a gambler on a monumental scale. Sampson neglects this facet of Geneen, although he does show that when Geneen acquired Hartford Insurance he knew full well that the antitrust division of the Justice Department would oppose him. In short, Sampson concludes, Geneen was under the utmost compulsion to try to change the trustbusters' collective mind...