Read the memoir for the reasons and the record for the results. The lesson is in the gap between them.
The list
Fourteen books by the people who made the call
Every book here was written by someone who made a decision Stratrix has covered, from Louis V. Gerstner Jr. keeping IBM whole to Michael Dell taking his company private. They are listed, not ranked, and grouped by the kind of decision. Each comes with the record of the same decision, so the account and the outcome sit side by side.
The pairs do not always agree. Sometimes the record backs the author: Gerstner’s refusal to break up IBM is the decision both treat as the one that mattered. Sometimes it adds what the book leaves out: the voting change behind Michael Dell’s buyout, the stores Best Buy rented to its own suppliers. And sometimes it gives credit elsewhere, as when our record of Microsoft’s turn to the cloud notes that Azure shipped under Satya Nadella’s predecessor. Reading the two together is the point.
Four books
Brought in, or brought back, to save a company
Four chief executives who took over a company in trouble and wrote down how they turned it around. The records beside them measure what each turnaround cost and where the recovery came from.
Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? Inside IBM's Historic Turnaround
Louis V. Gerstner Jr., IBM's chief executive from 1993. HarperBusiness, 2002. Book details
Gerstner's account of his nine years running IBM, starting in 1993 with the company close to collapse. He covers his first eighteen months and his choice to keep IBM together when plans to split it were already under way, then the cut in mainframe prices, the build-up of computing services, and his effort to change a culture that past success had made rigid, down to how executives were paid and promoted.
Onward: How Starbucks Fought for Its Life without Losing Its Soul
Howard Schultz with Joanne Gordon, Starbucks' chief executive again from 2008. Rodale, 2011. Book details
Schultz, writing with Joanne Gordon, tells how he came back to run Starbucks eight years after stepping down, with the company in decline and a recession setting in, and follows the painful steps he took to turn it around. Publishers Weekly recommended it to readers interested in leadership and in how a brand keeps its bond with its customers.
The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism
Hubert Joly with Caroline Lambert, Best Buy's chief executive from 2012 to 2020. Harvard Business Review Press, 2021. Book details
Joly builds an argument about how companies should be led out of Best Buy's recovery, at a time when many expected Amazon to finish the retailer off. Practical steps, such as matching online rivals' prices, sit beside his case that profit follows from purpose and people. He sets out five principles for leaders and ends each chapter with questions for the reader.
Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft's Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone
Satya Nadella with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols, Microsoft's chief executive since 2014. Harper Business, 2017. Book details
Nadella mixes his own story, from emigrating from India to his job interview at Microsoft, with an account of how he set out to change a company that had fallen behind as mobile and cloud computing arrived. He describes replacing internal rivalry with a more open culture, partnering with competitors including Apple, and the coming importance of machine intelligence.
Five books
The model they built
Five founders and builders on how their companies came to make money the way they do. The books tell the founding story; the records follow the model each company ended up with.
Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike
Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. Scribner, 2016. Book details
Knight's memoir of building the shoe company that became Nike, beginning with his idea that Japanese running shoes could win American buyers the way Japanese cameras had. Much of it follows the unglamorous work of buying, shipping and selling shoes: the deals, the lawsuits, and a long fight with a Japanese manufacturer that becomes one of the story's antagonists.
Grinding It Out: The Making of McDonald's
Ray Kroc with Robert Anderson, who built McDonald's. Henry Regnery Company, 1977. Book details
Kroc's memoir, written with Robert Anderson, of how he built McDonald's: his years selling paper cups and other goods before hamburgers, his buyout of the McDonald brothers of San Bernardino, the simple rules he set for franchised restaurants, the Hamburger University training program, new items such as the Egg McMuffin, and his later attempt to run the San Diego Padres the same way.
Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company—and Revolutionized an Industry
Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler, Salesforce's founder. Jossey-Bass, 2009. Book details
Benioff and Carlye Adler tell how Salesforce.com grew from a start-up to a billion dollars of annual revenue, in 111 short 'plays': how the company began, the case for selling software by subscription through a web browser instead of installing it on customers' machines, how Benioff used the press to cast Salesforce as an upstart against bigger rivals, and the company's approach to philanthropy.
Invent and Wander: The Collected Writings of Jeff Bezos, With an Introduction by Walter Isaacson
Jeff Bezos, Amazon's founder. Harvard Business Review Press and PublicAffairs, 2020. Book details
Not a memoir but Bezos's own writing collected: his annual letters to Amazon shareholders, beginning with the 1997 letter's insistence on the long term, followed by speeches and interviews, with a biographical introduction by Walter Isaacson. The themes include customer focus, the 'Day 1' mindset, accepting failure, and how he built and ran Amazon and Blue Origin.
That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea
Marc Randolph, who had the idea for Netflix in 1997. Little, Brown and Company, 2019. Book details
Randolph tells how Netflix went from his idea in 1997 to a working company: pitching investors, servers crashing on launch day, why videotapes were too costly to mail and DVDs were not, and his partnership with Reed Hastings, who backed the company and later ran it. He ends with lessons on starting a business, on failure and success, and on knowing when to let go.
Two books
Buying growth
Two chief executives who bet on acquisitions. The records beside their books reach very different verdicts.
The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company
Robert Iger, Disney's chief executive from 2005, and again from 2022. Random House, 2019. Book details
Iger's account of his career from his early years at ABC to the fifteen years he ran Disney: the priorities he set at the start, his relationship with Steve Jobs, and the acquisitions that brought Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm and 21st Century Fox into the company, with the leadership lessons he draws from them.
Tough Choices: A Memoir
Carly Fiorina, Hewlett-Packard's chief executive, who led the purchase of Compaq. Portfolio, 2006. Book details
Fiorina's memoir of her business career. About half covers her years at AT&T and Lucent; the later chapters cover Hewlett-Packard, including the contested acquisition of Compaq, the shareholder fight with Walter Hewlett over it, and her dealings with the board. Reviewers noted how few pages the merged company's years receive.
Three books
Who owns it, and how it runs
Three books about control: of the shares, of the mission, of the culture. The records show what happened when each choice was tested.
Play Nice But Win: A CEO's Journey from Founder to Leader
Michael Dell and James Kaplan, Dell's founder. Portfolio, 2021. Book details
Dell describes three fights over the company he founded: starting it, keeping it and changing it. Much of the book covers taking Dell private, which he says freed it from the pressure of quarterly earnings, and the opposition of the investor Carl Icahn. It also touches on the company becoming Dell Technologies after it combined with EMC.
Let My People Go Surfing: The Education of a Reluctant Businessman
Yvon Chouinard, Patagonia's founder. Penguin Press, 2005. Book details
Chouinard's account of Patagonia's history and the philosophy behind it, from forging climbing hardware and selling it from his car in 1957 to the first catalog in 1964, and how environmental responsibility shapes the company's products, production, hiring and management, including giving 1 percent of sales to environmental groups. A 2016 tenth-anniversary edition carries the story ten years further.
No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention
Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer, Netflix's co-founder, writing with INSEAD professor Erin Meyer. Penguin Press, 2020. Book details
Hastings and Meyer set out the culture Hastings built at Netflix, drawing on his recollections and interviews with more than 200 current and former employees: talent density, candor, the removal of controls such as vacation limits, freedom and responsibility, and the keeper test, the question of which employees a manager would fight to keep.
Stratrix’s Take
Borrow the reasoning, not the outcome
These books are worth reading for what no filing records: what the room felt like, which option the author nearly chose, what they feared. That is exactly why they need a second source. A memoir is written by the person with the most at stake in how the decision is remembered, often at the moment it looks most like a success.
If a book like these is shaping a decision of your own, take the reasoning and leave the ending. The ending belonged to a company, a market and a year that are not yours. Ask what the author knew, what they could not know, and what the record says happened after the last chapter.
Questions
Asked about books by leaders
Which books have CEOs written about their own decisions?
Among them: Who Says Elephants Can't Dance? by Louis V. Gerstner Jr. (2002), Onward by Howard Schultz with Joanne Gordon (2011), The Heart of Business by Hubert Joly with Caroline Lambert (2021), Hit Refresh by Satya Nadella with Greg Shaw and Jill Tracie Nichols (2017), Shoe Dog by Phil Knight (2016), Grinding It Out by Ray Kroc with Robert Anderson (1977), Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff and Carlye Adler (2009), Invent and Wander by Jeff Bezos (2020), That Will Never Work by Marc Randolph (2019), The Ride of a Lifetime by Robert Iger (2019), Tough Choices by Carly Fiorina (2006), Play Nice But Win by Michael Dell and James Kaplan (2021), Let My People Go Surfing by Yvon Chouinard (2005) and No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer (2020). Each of these authors made a decision Stratrix has a verified record of, and the list pairs every book with that record.
Which CEO memoirs are about turnarounds?
Louis V. Gerstner Jr.'s Who Says Elephants Can't Dance?, Howard Schultz's Onward, Hubert Joly's The Heart of Business and Satya Nadella's Hit Refresh. Each was written by the chief executive who took over a company in trouble.
Is this list ranked?
No. The rule for being on it is that the author made the decision the book describes and Stratrix has a verified record of that decision. The books are grouped by the kind of decision, not ordered by merit.
Is Shoe Dog about Nike's business model?
It is mostly the founding story: Phil Knight's idea of importing Japanese running shoes, the deals and lawsuits of the early years, and a long fight with a Japanese manufacturer. The business model Nike ended up with, a company that owns no factories, is the subject of the Stratrix record set beside it.
Where do the links go?
To the publisher's page for the book where we could reach it, otherwise to a catalog record or a trade review with the publication details. Stratrix earns nothing from them.
Most of these books are about a turnaround.Is this plan a turnaround, and can it be finished?
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