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Name: Lessons from the Titans
Rating: 4.2 (49 reviews)
Author: Scott Davis

Scott Davis

What Companies in the New Economy Can Learn from the Great Industrial Giants to Drive Sustainable Success

4.2 (49 ratings)

27 mins

Brief summary

Lessons from the Titans by Scott Davis explores the leadership styles of successful business giants like Jeff Bezos, Tim Cook & others. Full of insightful anecdotes, this book provides valuable lessons for aspiring entrepreneurs and corporate leaders seeking to hone their craft.

Topics

Crises & Scandals Strategy Innovation US Economics Leadership Decision-Making

Table of Contents

Lessons from the Titans
Summary of 7 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 7

What’s in it for me? Learn about the rise and fall of giant industrial companies.

Why do some companies fail while others succeed? To answer this question, people commonly point to new tech companies like Uber or Airbnb, which disrupt old industries. But the truth is that the culprit is more often an arrogant management culture. While some companies might appear to collapse suddenly, their declines are usually years in the making.

In these blinks, you’ll learn about a few industrial companies that have stood the test of time, often going from rock bottom to the very top, and vice versa. They reveal which management decisions led to growth and profit, and which undid years of hard-won progress. You’ll also discover how certain metrics – like disciplined cost management and humble corporate cultures – contribute to these shifts.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how General Electric acquired NBC for free;
why Boeing lost $50 billion developing the 787 Dreamliner aircraft; and
why nobody wanted to be Honeywell’s CEO.

Jack Welch’s RCA deal helped propel GE to industry dominance.

In 1986, Jack Welch announced General Electric’s purchase of electronics company Radio Corporation of America – known as RCA – to the tune of $6.3 billion. But GE already had a consumer electronics branch, and the deal left Wall Street analysts scratching their heads.

When Welch had taken over as CEO of GE in 1981, he’d inherited the century-old company’s bloated management structure. He spent the next few years cutting costs, and that strategy had worked wonderfully. Headcount was down 25 percent, while annual revenues were up 30 percent, to $37 billion.

But still – the RCA deal just didn’t make sense. But what analysts didn’t foresee was how Welch would use the deal to grow GE like never before.

The key message here is: Jack Welch’s RCA deal helped propel GE to industry dominance.

It was just one part of RCA that Jack Welch had eyes for: the TV network NBC. So he sold RCA’s other assets, as well as GE’s consumer electronics branches, for more than the cost of the deal. GE made a profit, keeping NBC basically for free. Then Welch used this extra cash to bet on growth projects.

The first of these concerned air travel. Noticing the rise in globalization, Welch predicted an uptick in demand for frequent flights between cities. Airplane manufacturer Boeing perceived this trend too, and upgraded its 737 plane accordingly.

Sensing opportunity, Welch outbid competitors and took over the contract to build the 737’s engine, the CFM56. Together, GE and Boeing improved the 737’s fuel efficiency and reduced engine noise, and by 2020, GE had sold over 32,000 CFM56 engines, making it one of the top-performing products in American history – and GE’s chief money-maker.

Jack Welch’s second big bet involved boosting the efficiency of the F series power turbine. Demand for electricity varies according to the season, so they designed the F series turbines to handle these seasonal spikes – to keep up with demand for air conditioners on hot days, for example. On days with lower demand, the surplus energy is used to power steam turbines.

Since these turbines last for decades, GE’s service costs turned it from a low-margin sale into a high-margin product. It was a clean alternative to coal power, and had investors scrambling to get a piece of its long-term profitability.

GE Capital’s success wasn’t sustainable.

During his 20 years as General Electric’s CEO, Jack Welch took a lot of risks. And for the most part, these ended up being very profitable. Welch transformed GE’s corporate structure, increased cash flow dramatically, adopted the Six Sigma quality control system for factories, and got rid of everything he viewed as dead weight.

By the year 2000, GE’s market capitalization had reached $600 million. In 2020 dollars, that would be the equivalent of $1.34 trillion, just above Apple’s, Microsoft’s, Google’s, and Amazon’s respective market caps.

Jeffrey Immelt perpetuated a company culture that deterred criticism and favored big ideas over practical investments.

In hindsight, GE Capital’s shady accounting tactics played an important role in General Electric’s decline. They also made it appear sudden, even while cracks had already begun to reveal themselves.

GE’s financial statements puzzled even the most experienced analysts and debt rating experts. And yet the US Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, never stepped in. GE was just too big, and as the company expanded, its lobbying clout did too.

Efforts to reduce Boeing’s risks and improve profitability had mixed success.

In the summer of 2007, Boeing had high hopes for its brand-new, high-tech 787 Dreamliner airplane, which it planned to unveil on July 8th. But there was just one problem – the plane was nowhere near ready. The wings were even missing segments.

In the end, the first 787 didn’t take its first test flight until 2009, and customers had to wait until 2011 for their first planes. The 787 didn’t actually become profitable until 2016, and by then, Boeing had lost over $50 billion. In response, CEO Jim McNerney announced a plan to get Boeing back on track that he called “de-risking the decade.”

Dave Cote revived Honeywell by cutting costs, developing new products, and expanding into new markets.

When Dave Cote received the offer to become CEO of Honeywell in 2002, it wasn’t because of his talent or experience – it was because nobody else wanted anything to do with Honeywell.

And no wonder. The company’s factories were in disarray, it was facing multiple lawsuits over asbestos liabilities, and it owed rising debts. As if that wasn’t enough, Cote became CEO in the aftermath of the economic decline following the dot-com bubble.

Mike Kneeland turned United Rentals around through reforms, continuous improvement practices, and regional cooperation.

The first few industrial businesses we’ve looked at develop and sell products to customers. But United Rentals does neither of these things – it rents out industrial equipment to other businesses.

Many companies don’t use machinery like aerial work platforms or industrial dehumidifiers all the time, and it doesn’t make sense to buy and maintain something that only gets used once or twice a month. So there’s clearly a market for United Rentals’ services. Yet when Mike Kneeland became CEO in 2008, the stock price had gone from $20 a share to just $3. Kneeland intended to reverse this trend, though, by making the most of the Great Recession’s lousy rental market and restructuring the company from the bottom up.

The most successful companies manage costs and risks, increase cash flow, and effectively deploy capital resources.

Companies like Uber and WeWork might operate in fundamentally different industries from General Electric and Honeywell, but they have also run into the problem of profitability and responsible risk management.

As it turns out, the so-called new economy of today has a lot in common with the old economy dominated by industrial businesses. And the reasons why a company is successful – or fails – often boil down to the same basic principles. In fact, there are a few key commonalities between General Electric, Boeing, Honeywell, United Rentals, and their peers.

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What is Lessons from the Titans about?

Lessons from the Titans (2020) tells the stories of ten industrial companies in the United States. From General Electric to Boeing, Honeywell to United Rentals, it looks at which strategic decisions led to success and which disastrous missteps created new obstacles. By analyzing the past performance of such legendary businesses, it offers greater insight into which companies today will stick around – and which won’t.

Lessons from the Titans Review

Lessons from the Titans (2021) by Scott Davis is a valuable read for anyone seeking insights into business success. Here's why this book is definitely worth reading:

Packed with practical strategies and lessons learned from the world's most successful entrepreneurs, it offers actionable advice that can be applied to any business endeavor.
Combining case studies, interviews, and personal experiences, this book provides a comprehensive understanding of what it takes to thrive in the business world.
With its engaging storytelling style and captivating anecdotes, it ensures that readers are kept interested and invested in the lessons being shared.

Who should read Lessons from the Titans?

Business gurus fascinated by economic shifts
Entrepreneurs looking to future-proof their companies
Economists curious about market shifts

About the Author

Scott Davis is a former Wall Street analyst with over 25 years of experience. He spent 16 years as Managing Director and Head of the Global Industrials Research Group at Morgan Stanley. Currently, Davis is the Chairman, CEO, and lead research analyst of Melius Research. Written with Carter Copeland and Rob Wertheimer, also from Melius Research, this is Davis’s first book.

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