The Mind of the CEO [Paperback]

Jeffrey E. Garten (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 24, 2001

Based on extensive and highly personal interviews with forty chief executives around the world-among them GE's Jack Welch, AOL's Steven Case, Intel's Andy Grove, Newscorp's Rupert Murdoch, BP Amoco's John Browne, Nokia's Jorma Olilla, and Toyota's Hiroshi Okuda-The Mind of the CEO takes us on a journey into the innermost thoughts of today's corporate titans and paints a compelling picture of the strategic and daily challenges facing them. Jeffrey Garten's findings are a challenge to those who are suspicious of corporate power, those who believe CEOs should focus only on enriching shareholders, and even to many CEOs who see their jobs much more narrowly. No one interested in the future can afford not to read, think about, and debate this book.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Yale Management School dean and BusinessWeek columnist Jeffrey Garten has written a provocative if perhaps mistitled book. Billed as a "journey into the innermost thoughts of corporate titans," The Mind of the CEO is really about Garten's own thoughts. He makes no pretense at being objective, admitting: "I want to talk about the awesome challenges CEOs face as seen through what they said to me and as filtered through my own experiences and my own thoughts."

Garten uses his interviews with 40 household names--including Intel's Andy Grove, GE's Jack Welch, PepsiCo's Roger Enrico, and AOL's Steve Case--to articulate his own questions and strategies for CEOs to thrive during the "third Industrial Revolution." He interprets these interviews through the lens of his tenures on Wall Street, at Yale, and as President Clinton's Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade. Among the challenges he analyzes: what CEOs are doing (or must do) to win the Internet wars and meet the challenges of going global, why CEOs must emphasize the "true north" of consistent values, and how a shareholder is different from a stakeholder. With great clarity, he details the demise of several CEOs who resigned under pressure, including Aetna's Richard Huber and Xerox's Richard Thoman, and suggests that "a vision without execution is a hallucination."

Yet Garten's core concern--and one where he is most passionate--is how to expand the leadership role of CEOs on the world stage. He urges leaders to curb their ethnocentrism and to take more responsibility for creating a world environment in which everyone can prosper. By framing this issue of leaders as world citizens, Garten raises smart and searching questions for a wired world economy. --Barbara Mackoff --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

The Dean of the Yale School of Management as well as a Business Week columnist and a former Undersecretary of Commerce for International Trade, Garten interviewed some of today's foremost business leaders, including Jack Welch, Andrew Grove, Stephen Case and Rupert Murdoch. These CEOs offer insights into the demands of the new economy, in which companies must focus on global competition, social responsibility and attracting and retaining talent. Organized by theme ("The Next Internet Wars," "Being Global," etc.), the book provides an excellent, pertinent summary of significant business issues by people in the know. Given Garten's strong reputation and his recent interviews with principals in GE's acquisition of Honeywell, this book should easily find a wide readership.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Basic Books; 1st edition (December 24, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0465026168
• ISBN-13: 978-0465026166
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,453,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The Mind of the CEO, March 20, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mind of the CEO (Hardcover)

Nothing new here. The book was moderately interesting. As CEO of a company company based in the midwest, I was looking for real insight. This book offered nothing new and frankly ended on a sour note for me. Clearly, Jeffrey Garten is without any serious and current operational experience or he would understand how his liberal, government centric views don't work in today's business environment. Had Mr. Garten operated his own business for any period of time, he would know that it is more than a full-time job to satisfy investors/shareholders, staff, boards, customers and other interested parties - not to mention directing trade policy for the federal government. If private business spends more time leading public policy and less time in business, what would that do for shareholders, domestic and global economy? I especially enjoyed the part towards the end of the book where Garten, as "part of the first Clinton Administration", take credit for the end of the Cold War with Russia and tearing down the Berlin Wall - sorry attempt to take credit for something he nothing to do with as part of the U.S. Department of Commerce. This book is weak and I am sorry I took time out of my busy schedule to read about Garten's view of the world.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Vapid, May 11, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: The Mind of the CEO (Paperback)

As other reviewers note, this book offers little insight into the internal workings of the CEO mind and is rather filled with trite quotations and the author's own speculations. One inescapable conclusion is that the reader searching for some wisdom among America's CEO's or deans of Yale's business school is likely to be disappointed. Perhaps rising to the top is neither evidence of some greater intellectual power nor of an ability to articulate novel ideas nor even of any particular talent. Rising to the top is more a reflection of one's ability to acquire and wield power and thus it should neither surprise nor disappoint us that the "leaders" at the top, both in business and academics, aren't all that smart. Perhaps that is the lesson from this trivial little work.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Don't buy PDF format. Buy the book!, November 8, 2002

By A Customer

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Mind of the CEO (Digital)

This pdf version misses a lot of pages. Not worth getting it.