Supervisor's Survival Kit: Your First Step into Management, Ninth Edition

IBM AND GM LEARNED THE HARD WAY

You may have heard the story about a time when IBM was struggling. It had to downsize and adjust to the new way of doing business internationally. IBM had been recognized by most business leaders as the number one international company. The trouble was that IBM became too big with too many layers of management and, for some reason, stopped listening to its customers. The company was concentrating on producing its famous computers but was not always solving its customers' problems. Result? Some small computer firms (Apple, Microsoft, and others) slipped in and did a better job with customers. IBM was forced to recognize that its way of doing business (its paradigm) was outdated. It was operating under the wrong ...