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To mark its 25th anniversary,
in the August/September issue, Chief
Executive celebrated 25 CEOs in a wide range
of industries who, simply put, changed the world through their innovations.
"CEO" and "innovation" are not normally found in the
same sentence. Innovation is something that happens down in the
ranks or in the lab by some hot shot techy. Not so! "These
25 mavericks - some controversial, some wacky, all driven - show what
it takes to revolutionize business."
Fred Smith - Federal Express - Pioneering
just-in-time delivery
Lee Iacocca - Chrysler - Winning first billion-dollar bailout
Ted Turner - CNN - Round-the-clock entrepreneur
Bill Gates - Microsoft - Creating technology for the masses
Tadashi Kume - Honda - Leading the world's auto industry
Deng Xiaoping - China - Capitalism with Chinese characteristics
Steve Jobs - Apple Computer - Recognizing a good idea
Phil Knight - Nike -Recreating marketing
Steve Case - America Online - He's got a good idea
Michael Milken - Drexel Burnham Lambert - Triggering liquidity
bonanza
Hugh McColl - North Carolina National Bank - Building a nationwide
bank
Jack Welch - General Electric - Management genius
Michael Eisner - Disney - Bringing vitality to a legend
Herb Kelleher - Southwest Airlines - Building an airline with
attitude
Sam Walton - Wal-Mart - Opening the door to discount retail
Andy Grove - Intel - Picking and choosing technology
Craig McCaw - McCaw Cellular - Cashing in on cellular
Charles Schwab - Charles Schwab - Discount broker goes dot.com
Lou Gerstner - IBM - Raising turnaround to an art form
Katherine Graham - Washington Post - A model for her industry
Warren Buffett - Berkshire Hathaway - Values in a time of hysteria
Jeff Bezos - Amazon.com - Personifying the e-year
Larry Ellison - Oracle - Controversy is good for competition
Michael Dell - Dell Computer - Reinventing sales - cheap and
direct
Meg Whitman - eBay - Flea-market philosophies for a digital age
Business is all about innovation in delivering value
to the customer - innovation in technology, in financing, in business models,
in processes. We take many of those represented above for granted,
but along the way they took big risks, with no surety of the outcomes.
These were not flash in the pan businesses. Each took years of dedicated
effort to flourish.
These leaders did not wait for opportunities to come
along: they created them. Who ever heard of:
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broadcasting new 24 hours a day before
Ted Turner? |
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locating a foreign automotive plant two
hours from Detroit before Tadashi Kume? |
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guaranteeing
delivery of a package anywhere overnight before Fred Smith? |
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building a nationwide bank from
a small regional one before Hugh McColl? |
As I read the capsule descriptions of these innovations,
I gleaned three primary lessons that set these 25 leaders apart:
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unwavering belief in the rightness of the
big idea and tenacity in pursuing it. |
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being open to new ideas and championing
them regardless of their source. |
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understanding
that information about a transaction can be more valuable than the
transaction itself. |
Read the whole article in Chief
Executive, August/September, 2002, issue.
Send
us your thoughts about innovation.
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