Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors: Eight Winning Styles for Solving Giant Business Crises [Hardcover]

Gerald C. Meyers (Author), Susan Meyers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 21, 2000

Praise for Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors "These revealing stories capture what it takes today to lead your company through a crisis." -Heath Meriwether; Publisher, Detroit Free Press "I urge all senior managers to read this book.. Most crises are sudden, with intensity building in a couple of days like a tropical storm. Gerry's wisdom will prepare you before it becomes a category-4 hurricane." -Dr. Ilker Baubars, Senior Deputy Dean, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University "Dealers, Healers, Brutes, and Saviors is must reading for any executive, who too often does not recognize a crisis until it's too late. Gerald Meyers's keen insight into crisis management has been invaluable to many corporate CEOs, including me." -John R. Hall, Retired Chairman of the Board and CEO, Ashland, Inc. "There's a huge range of responses that are feasible when you're faced with a crisis. Knowing how real people chose, acted, and succeeded in managing their crises is critical to solid decision-making. That's what this book is all about and why it is worth the investment." -Edward A. Snyder, Dean, The Darden School University of Virginia "Confronted by crisis, the successful leaders profiled in this fast-moving, readable book universally embrace risk, take charge, move quickly, often, save their companies." -James A. Henderson, Chairman and CEO Cummins Engine Company

Editorial Reviews

Review

"These revealing stories capture what it takes today to lead your company through a crisis."(Heath Meriwether, Publisher, Detroit Free Press)

"I urge all senior managers to read this book....Most crises are sudden, with intensity building in a couple days like a tropical storm. Gerry's wisdom will prepare you before it becomes a category-4 hurricane." (Dr. Ilker Baybars, Senior Deputy Dean, Graduate School of Industrial Administration, Carnegie Mellon University)

"Dealers, Healers, Brutes, and Saviors is must reading for any executive, who too often does not recognize a crisis until it's too late. Gerald Meyers' keen insight into crisis management has been invaluable to many corporate CEOs, including me."(John R. Hall, Retired Chairman of the Board and CEO, Ashland, Inc.)

From the Inside Flap

Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors They are brilliant leaders and fearless renovators. They meet crises head on, defying expectations and striking out in radical directions in order to achieve breakthrough solutions. They are behind some of the biggest business success stories of the decade. Dealers, Healers, Brutes, and Saviors presents the inside stories of a remarkable group of businesspeople who guided their companies through storms that would have shattered most businesses. It takes you behind the scenes at such companies as Texaco, Intel, Chrysler, and Dow Corning, captures their leaders performing at their very peak under immense pressure, and provides some of the most eye-opening business lessons you'll ever encounter. Peeling back the layers of each high-profile business dilemma, Gerald C. Meyers and Susan Meyers dig deep beneath the stories that made the news and offer fresh insights about how each leader overcame near-impossible odds. Gerald Meyers is on a first-name basis with all of the key executives in this book. His unique exposure lets him drive right to the heart of what makes these executives tick-revealing how they make decisions and why they make mistakes, what they are willing to sacrifice to stay on top, and what they will fight for to the bitter end. This is the first book to classify eight distinct and highly successful styles of management used by top businesspeople in times of severe crisis. From the Dealmakers to the Sizzle Sellers to the Unorthodox Operators, these executives offer a candid, frequently personal narrative describing what they felt and how they acted under extreme pressure. You'll hear from power CEOs such as Robert Crandall, the Brilliant Brute who pulled American Airlines out of a tailspin; Steven Goldstone, the Savior who engineered a resolution to the tobacco wars; Steve Miller, the Healer who led rescues at Morrison Knudsen and Waste Management; and Peter Bijur, the Peacemaker who resurrected Texaco following devastating racial discrimination accusations. Using these and other vivid illustrations of winning leadership styles, Dealers, Healers, Brutes, and Saviors takes an unprecedented look at how some of the very best business leaders solve problems. The executives here are role models for tomorrow's business leaders. These are the shoes the next generation must fill to lead us into the promising but uncertain century ahead.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 267 pages
• Publisher: Wiley; 1 edition (January 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0471347825
• ISBN-13: 978-0471347828
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,874,873 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars You Had to Be There, September 22, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 110,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors: Eight Winning Styles for Solving Giant Business Crises (Hardcover)

The most popular social figures of any age are characterized by being very effective one-on-one and in small groups. Their methods are often lost when translated into writing, because a great deal of their effectiveness depends on a state of mind, demeanor, style, and body language that are hard to capture when you haven't seen them.

Drawing on personal observations and interrogations in MBA classes, Gerald Meyers has created leadership style categories in this interesting book that are sometimes hard to grasp by those who have not yet met the leaders the co-authors outline. Although he shares many interesting case histories, the case histories are a little too brief in some cases to reveal much about the underlying person and what he (these are all men) does as a leader. That was why I had to grade the book down one star.

Some of the categories were instantly recognizable to me, such as Sizzle Sellers (the perennial salesman as CEO), Healers (those who bind together capable people after a major fiasco by the previous CEO), Saviors (those who follow a major fiasco that leaves the company devastated, and with few choices), and Dealmakers (finding common ground that expands value for the company, while creating a win for the person being negotiated with). I could name my own examples of these.

I had more trouble understanding Unorthodox Operators (which seemed to me to be a question of strategy orientation rather than style), Peacemakers (this seems like a variation on healers, with a negotiating issue at hand), and Brilliant Brutes (these may simply be smart leaders who like to zing their staffs and operating people -- it's a style, but is it worth memorializing?). You'll have to decide for yourself. These categories may have meaning for you based on meeting other executives than I have.

These are obviously not the only styles there are. Other styles including those for avoiding crises, styles for turning crises to advantage, and styles for containing crises. Those styles are beyond the scope of the book. However, I would commend to you reading Built to Last, which addresses style elements that are at odds with many of the ideas here and which help avoid crises in the first place.

I, too, meet lots of top CEOs, and there are other styles of crisis-solving that one can find. A style that I find particularly compelling is that of changing the business model by encouraging innovation in that area. I think that style will be a dominant one in the future. Another will be the person who can develop an organization that generates strategies that work in any business environment. So don't let your thinking be too limited by these style types. Better ones may be emerging.

The typology will be especially useful to boards of directors as they consider what kind of a CEO they want to lead the company next, and what sort of leadership team should be developed.

After you have considered these styles, ask yourself these questions: (1) Which style (if one of these) do you use? (2) What are the drawbacks of that style in crisis and noncrisis situations? (3) What style would work better? (4) Why? (5) What style would you most like to have others apply to you?

Too many of us are not conscious enough about our own styles. Some of the people in the profiles seemed quite surprised by how they are perceived by others. That's perhaps the greatest vulnerability you can have in employing a style.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read for all MBA Students, March 21, 2000

By 

Scott Holstead (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors: Eight Winning Styles for Solving Giant Business Crises (Hardcover)

As an MBA student who will soon be returning to the working world, I must say that all business schools around the country should mandate a class in crisis management. Gerry Meyers' first-hand, real world, and in-your-face analysis of major corporate crises encountered at some of the most respected companies in the U.S. is the most useful text I have found to prepare me for the sometimes not so perfect world. I highly recommend this book to anyone who has aspirations of leading a business organization and wants to see what life is really like at the top when the xxxx hits the fan!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Thinking Outside of the Box-Put into Practice, August 18, 2000

By 

Alvin S. Levett (Southeast Michigan) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Dealers, Healers, Brutes & Saviors: Eight Winning Styles for Solving Giant Business Crises (Hardcover)

This book pierces the corporate veil. The author takes you inside the executive suite.

Clearly written, precise accounts showing how today's top executives apply their individual attributes and personalities in solving and avoiding business crises. The book demonstrates that managing is 4 parts art and 1 part management theory.

This book is both entertaining and insightful. It held my attention like few other business texts.