Hi Keith,
>Very interesting book, I read it at the time. I recall a corporate >quip about Geneen which put his attitude in some perspective: "Is >that a G as in 'God' or as in 'Jesus'?" I don't think I ever found >out - which is it, Hakan? Quite a bit of all three of them, you forgot the one downstairs. Very patronizing and a lot of "For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge", but using the English prison abbreviation. > >"The Sovereign State of ITT" (i.e., International Telephone and > >Telegraph) uncovers the history of a multinational that long ago > >became an autonomous pirate state. In the 1970s, ITT became famous, > >briefly, for bribing Nixon aides to back off an antitrust action, > >and to intervene to protect ITT interests in Allende's Chile. Much of this probably happened because of the lack of oversight. ITT was more of a federation (i.e. USA), where everyone with profit and loss responsibility was mini Gods until they made losses. Centralized or decentralized organizations, they both have benefits and faults. ITT was in many respects a movement, based on the same principles as we want to use for fast implementation on grassroots level. That is also why they got involved in so many kind of businesses and became so large so fast. A corporate proof of how powerful such a structure can be. ITT was not really large in US, it was the Worlds 7th largest corporation at my time there, but 80% of their business was abroad. Because of the federate nature, it adapted very much to local business environments. Translated to today, the ITT companies on Island would be among the most honest in the world, but the ITT companies in Nigeria would be a part of the Mafia. Geneen was not very particular on bringing "the American moral values" (LOL) to the world, but very keen on bringing "the American $" to the shareholders, the normal real values for todays corporations also. Hakan At 03:07 PM 12/24/2002 +0900, you wrote: >Hello Hakan > >Pardon the snip: > ><snip> > > >It is very few large companies that can live > >with entrepreneurs, the only one I have close work experiences from, was > >ITT, when Harold Geneen was still in charge. By the way, I was shocked > >by his language the only time I participated in a meeting with him, very > >American. What made ITT was its decentralized structure and at the > >time the best flexible planning, budget, accounting and follow up system. > >Geneen, good heavens - it's a long time since I thought of him. > >"The Sovereign State of ITT", by Anthony Sampson, 1974 > >"The Sovereign State of ITT" (i.e., International Telephone and > >Telegraph) uncovers the history of a multinational that long ago > >became an autonomous pirate state. In the 1970s, ITT became famous, > >briefly, for bribing Nixon aides to back off an antitrust action, > >and to intervene to protect ITT interests in Allende's Chile. > >Sampson tells us much more -- e.g., spelling out the deals the > >stateless ITT cut with Hitler. It's an instructive tale. Because > >despite his critics, free-trader George Bush does have a "vision" -- > >one of a planet organized by corporations much like ITT, and run by > >men much like former ITT head Harold Geneen. > >Very interesting book, I read it at the time. I recall a corporate >quip about Geneen which put his attitude in some perspective: "Is >that a G as in 'God' or as in 'Jesus'?" I don't think I ever found >out - which is it, Hakan? > > >I think that your goals of helping is better served by a number of > >business plan templates, flexibility and adaption. Rather than standard > >planning and alignment. It could be a very valuable help for many and > >can also result in strength of a loosely knit interest organization. > >Yes, "loosely knit". Networks and networks - the trouble with a >spiderweb is that there's a spider in the middle. The type of >networking the Big Biofuels guys proposed to us always had them very >much in the middle. The Internet doesn't have a middle, despite all >and ongoing attempt by various centralist spiders to create one for >them to sit in. On that account it could just turn out to be the best >thing that ever happened. > >regards > >Keith > > > >Hakan > > Biofuels at Journey to Forever http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuel at WebConX http://webconx.green-trust.org/2000/biofuel/biofuel.htm List messages are archived at the Info-Archive at NNYTech: http://archive.nnytech.net/ To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
