Word: sloan
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...Control. After graduating from M.I.T. in 1895, Sloan parlayed a $5,000 grubstake into control of a small New Jersey roller-bearing plant. In 1916 William Durant, the flamboyant founder of General Motors, bought out Sloan, who became a G.M. executive. Only four years later, when Durant was forced out for speculating in G.M. shares, Sloan had shown such a flair for organization that the new Du Pont management made him executive vice president. In 1923 he became president...
From the time the Du Ponts took over, Sloan and G.M. were inseparable. He took hold of the seemingly unmanageable collection of divisions, some of which hid their cash from the others, and shook hard; he brought order out of chaos, and thus geared the company for a growth that hardly anyone else foresaw. He instituted G.M.'s famed-and often copied-system of "decentralization with coordinated control," emphasized selling autos on the installment plan, and set up G.M.'s first efficient auto-dealer system...
Leveling on Ford. After shaping up G.M., Sloan in the mid-'20s leveled his sights on his bitter and then bigger rival, Ford. Old Henry Ford's policy was to stick with one model, in one color, in one price bracket-forever, if possible. Sloan countered with a strategy of change and diversity that aimed at the auto buyers' varying tastes and pocketbooks and their desire for change. He broadened G.M.'s line by creating the medium-priced Pontiac and by extending Chevrolet further into the low-priced field. He then inaugurated the most unbeatable auto...
...Sloan's strategy worked so well that Ford was forced to discontinue the Model T and close his plants for six months in 1927 to retool for the Model A. While Ford was shut down, G.M. drove past; it has never been in second place again. By the time the Depression came, Sloan had G.M. in such good shape that it rolled through the '30s without ever failing to pay a dividend. After the Depression eased, Sloan began a thorough modernization of G.M.'s plants, pushed auto refinements that led to better steering and automatic transmissions...
...Enough." Sloan makes it plain that he holds strictly oldfashioned, lean-hound-dog notions about how to run a company. "The final act of business judgment is intuitive," he says, and "no organization is sounder than the men who run it." He makes clear his belief that the chief responsibility of an executive is to make decisions-even at the risk of making wrong ones...