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If you have already read books by or about Michael Dell, Bill Gates, Lou Gerstner, Andy Grove, Herb Kelleher, Jack Welch and Sam Walton, you will probably think this is a two star book. If you are unfamiliar with any of these gentleman and their companies, you will find this book to be a helpful introduction that can direct you to more detailed reading on subjects that interest you.

What's new about this book is that Mr. Krames positions thought experiments in the sections about each CEO so you can address a business problem . . . and compare your answers to those the CEOs might have supplied. These are a cinch if you have read about the people involved, and are otherwise quite challenging. There are also helpful questions to test your organization's current applications of the concept at the end of each CEO's chapter.

What's not new about the book is any information that hasn't been written before about what the CEOs did in their own companies. I cannot remember seeing anything that I hadn't seen already. As a result, the book serves as a condensation of past learning. That's helpful for those who read little and have limited time. I didn't detect too many problems with the material. The consistent pattern of misfocus was concentrated in not in explaining enough about the context for the ideas. All of Jack Welch's big theme ideas were borrowed (as Mr. Krames points out for Sam Walton), and Mr. Welch was often quite late in picking up on and applying those ideas. Many of the initiatives in expanding service at IBM were well underway before Lou Gerstner arrived. I graded the book down one star for these slight misfocuses.

If you have the time, there's a better book either by or about each person than this one. Feel free to go to the better source!

As I finished the book, I began to realize that much study of great leaders is influenced by the size of their success . . . rather than the size of their accomplishment. If we were looking at leaders who had made great transformations, we would also be reading about Millard Fuller at Habitat for Humanity International, Jack Bogle at Vanguard, Mike Ruettgers at EMC, Richard Reese at Iron Mountain, Rob McEwen at Goldcorp, and Bernard Liautaud at Business Objects. I wonder what it will take before studies of best practices turn to those who are best at those practices.