The CEO Within: Why Inside Outsiders Are the Key to Succession

By Joseph L. Bower

Book Overview

This title delivers a clear framework to help companies develop a healthy supply of internal candidates.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1422104613
• ISBN13: 9781422104613
• Release Date: October 2007
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 244 Pages
• Weight: 1.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 6.4" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Sensible advice for CEO succession

Major companies constantly make decisions that carry enormous consequences: how and where to invest their money, what new product or service to introduce, and which market to retreat from or penetrate. But Joseph L. Bower, a Harvard Business School faculty member for more than 40 years, believes that selecting the right CEO is a company's most important decision. So why, he wonders, do so many organizations select the wrong person? In this intelligent, well-written and insightful book on corporate leadership, Bower examines the CEO succession process and postulates that maybe the old-boy network isn't so terrific after all. He says smart corporations hand the ball off to "Inside Outsiders," executives within the company who know how to play the game but aren't afraid to try some trick plays. Bower's inside-outsider poster child is Jack Welch, the engineer who became General Electric's amazingly successful CEO. Whether your company's CEO is about to retire or has just been installed, we strongly recommend this interesting, instructive book. After all, you don't want to wind up on the outside looking in.