Mean Business: How I Save Bad Companies and Make Good Companies Great (Paperback)

~ (Author), (Contributor) "I was standing in the aisles of a Publix Supermarket near my home in Boca Raton, Florida, when it became shockingly apparent how much trouble..." (more)
Key Phrases: tissue business, tissue company, bath tissue, Scott Paper, Sir James, New York (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Al Dunlap, whose corporate behavior has earned him nicknames like The Shredder, took over as CEO of Scott Paper when the venerable paper goods manufacturer was on the brink of death. His ultimately successful efforts at corporate resuscitation are recounted in his typically colorful and exhilarating manner in Mean Business: How I Save Bad Companies and Make Good Companies Great, written with Bob Andelman. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Company turnaround specialist Dunlap is termed by his critics "Rambo in Pinstripes" or "Chainsaw Al." Most recently notable for a 16-month stint at Scott Paper during which company stock rose 163% (Dunlop sold off non-core businesses and cut executive perks), he now heads the appliance maker Sunbeam. Dunlap scorns trendy management theories and considers downsizing not a bandwagon action but a response to a company's fundamental weaknesses. His formula appears deceptively simple: pick a good (and small) team, figure out what business you are in, concentrate only on that, cut costs and market your product well. He approaches boards in a similar fashion, arguing that all directors should buy stock when they join, be paid only in stock, serve no more than five years and never forget they work for the stockholders. Much of Dunlap's argument makes sense, and he is probably right when he says that he would not be hired if managers had done their jobs right. But, having made his reputation now, he'd do well to take the chip off his shoulder and stop positioning himself as "A Nothing Kid from Hoboken" who takes cheap shots at Harvard M.B.A.s. Author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Fireside (October 28, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684844060
• ISBN-13: 978-0684844060
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #319,716 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Good Ideas but..., March 25, 2000

By	Joel Casselman (Winnipeg) - See all my reviews

I read this book when it first came out in hardcover, and was very impressed by Dunlap's beliefs and methods. Now that the smoke has cleared with Dunlap's fiasco at Sunbeam and the recent biography "Chainsaw", I find this book to be fairly shabby. For one thing, Dunlap only seemed to be concerned with the price of the stock, rather than the rate of return on the investment. He says that one should not cut jobs just to increase the share price, yet he boasted about improving the share price (which at Sunbeam, crashed after he was sacked). A share price should reflect the profit which a company makes, not by what type of actions the chairman makes. He sold Scott to Kimberly Clark for a fairly hefty sum, but now that buyout seems to have less value than originally anticipated. Rather than building up what's best in a corporation, he seems to cut them down to size (which speculatively increases their value) and sell them off while the going's good. Good value for him, provded that he sells off his shares, but for the long term shareholders, it's a rip off. Second, I admire the idea of corporations streamlining the management process, and thowing away the corporate toys. He feels that executives should not be excessively paid, and i admire the idea of executives being paid in stock, having to buy stock out of their own pocket, and accepting term limits and conflict of interest rules. However, according to "Chainsaw" he seemed to have many of the perks (like a bodyguard and room for his dogs at a hotel) which he claims an executive should be denied. He feels that executives should not be excessively paid, and I admire the idea of executives being paid in stock, having to buy stock out of their own pocket, and accepting term limits and conflict of interest rules. Yet, his infatuation with the value of the share (rather than the rate of return) forces the executives to focus more and more on the short term, rather than the long term. This seems to be in contradiction to his marketing idea of a high margin, rather than an high volume of sales. Third, his autobiography seems to be a fraud. According to Chainsaw, his father was not a dock worker/union steward, but a boiler maker. The family had a nice middle class lifestyle, not the poverty which Dunlap has described. Dunlap makes no reference to his sister, his first wife, to whom he seemed abusive, or to his son Troy, to whom he refused to help with his college tuition and whom he wrote out of his will. Finally, Dunlap claims to have admiration for his parents, yet he did not even attend their funerals. Mean Business really hints at what type of ego Dunlap has, through his continual boasting about his accomplishments in creating shareholder value. Chainsaw, on the other hand, expands on this, showing what type of a tyrant this man is, ruthlessly screaming at employees for hours on end (and even sexually harassing one of them) and expecting them to at his beck and call. In theory, his ideas seem fairly sound, but in practice, I feel that focusing exclusively on the value of a share price will have extremely dire long term consequences.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Hype at its essentials. An assortment of over-simplified views on business management., October 9, 2005

By	lofey (Hong Kong SAR, China) - See all my reviews

I read selective chapters of this book in advising a student's translation project. I'm not an expert in the business field but I found this book (at least the chapters I read) filled with over-simplified views on business activities.

Dunlap was laureated as the "Company turnaround specialist" by admirers. He described his experience of saving companies from bankrupting and making their stock prices climb. Here's my few thoughts about the ideas preached in this book:

1) Dunlap's ideas are nothing original. For example, he repeatedly emphasize in the book that the vital method of running a business is to "cut unnecessary cost" and "maximize efficiency" of the management team. One can find "insights" like these in any college business management textbook. Members of the former management team would look dumb if the their total efforts and wisdom added together didn't outweigh Dunlap's. Is it possible?

2) People are considered nothing more than "human resources" (resources basically, just happened to be human) utilized by the firm in profit-generation. That's Tenet One in Capitalist Management Ideology and I don't wanna challenge its moral basis. "Driving people to achieve their best through pushing and rewarding" is no discovery of New Continent to any CEO (or college kid). I was surprised when I read Dunlap, filled with self-complacency, described how he acted according to the above "insights" in carrying out "corporate resuscitation". But then, what couldn't be done if people are not treated as distinct humans but corporate consumables? In the eyes of people like Dunlap (people in sympathy with his views are everywhere), stock price or accumulation of capital rather than people in the first place are viewed as the primary goals. I beg to differ with this mentality.

3) The idea of Dunlap, whether flattered by the superficial media or explicitly self-boosting, as the savior of failing companies is strongly in doubt. The climbing up of a company's stock price after Dunlap took charge might not be simply the result of his "insightful leadership". Stock price is a multiple-factors controlled variable. It could reflect the actual value or the "perceived" value of a company. The latter could be hugely influential. Dunlap has become a brand-name, a commodity in itself. The association of a company with the brand-name would affect the expectations of speculators, and might boost its stock price. This phenomenon is not restricted in business. Any hype concerning celebrity, advertising or fake-medicine behaves similarly.

The public needs a hero and they make one for themselves, which makes failure easier to explain and more palatable. Mechanism of Hype production.

Save your time for things more meaningful. Life is too brief for wasting on books and ideas like that. Not recommended. I would rate it zero star if I can.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Great at Exposing Stalled Thinking: Weak for Best Results, February 3, 1999

By	Professor Donald Mitchell "Jesus Makes Me a P... (Boston) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)

I find it challenging to review this book, because it has some outstanding points in it. At the same time, the author's philosophy is one that I strongly diagree with based on many years of consulting experience and research. Whenever Mr. Dunlap is talking about the procrastination, wishful thinking, and "do nothing" approach of the managements he followed, Mr. Dunlap is superb. I have met some of these people, and also found their management styles to be deficient. Management has responsiblity to look, listen, and sense how well it is serving its customers, employees, shareholders, suppliers, and the communities the company services. Having diagnosed what needs to be done, good management then does something effective to make a change. Then management monitors the results and keeps making changes, until the correct outcomes follow. The people who preceded Mr. Dunlap seemed to have lived in a fairy tale world of reorganizing the internal perceptions and jobs, but doing little to affect the world external to the corporation. To anyone who wants to see how management can delude itself, Mr. Dunlap has given us valuable case histories. On the other hand, I think he is totally wrong in putting shareholders first (even if we assume that shareholders deserve a greater reward than any other stakeholder group). My experience has been that shareholders make much more money (near-term and long-term) when all stakeholder groups prosper. For example, you can make more money for shareholders by creating better products and services than you can by just reducing costs in the near-term. Our research has shown that the vast majority of companies that do large cost reductions like those Mr. Dunlap has done underperform the stock market compared to industry peers (and the market averages) after 18 months has passed. I think Mr. Dunlap was wise to sell his businesses as soon as possible after the cost reductions were over. A different management style was then needed to create longer-term and larger prosperity for shareholders. I, too, have worked in the paper industry (as a consultant) and I find the same principles apply in paper as elsewhere: There are ways to create more for everyone. But first, you have to look for them. In his haste, I fear that Mr. Dunlap has missed seeing the larger opportunity for his investors. For example, the best reason to achieve a higher stock price is to then use that stock price to create even more advantages for the shareholders (such as buying new resources less expensively, having more financial flexibility to pursue opportunities, and growing earnings and cash flow faster). If you would like to know more about this point, read my article in the Fall 1998 issue of DIRECTORS & BOARDS called "The Benefits of Having a Higher Stock Price."