Plain Talk: Lessons from a Business Maverick

Front Cover
Wiley, Oct 22, 1997 - Business & Economics - 196 pages
Ken Iverson, the Chairman of Nucor Corporation, says many things you wouldn't expect to hear from a Fortune 500 executive. But then, few top executives are such fervent champions of the front-line worker. Now, in his long-awaited book, this visionary maverick shares valuable lessons about what it takes to build a super-competitive, world-class business. Nucor - a $3.8 billion dynamo of profitable growth - disdains committees, job descriptions, performance appraisals, and everything else bearing the taint of bureaucracy. Iverson believes people should earn according to what they produce. And he relentlessly "destroys hierarchy" to eliminate the trappings that distance managers from employees. Nucor has never laid off an employee or shut down a facility for lack of work. Instead, the company has followed Iverson's controversial "painsharing" approach. When times get tight, everyone takes paycuts - starting with the executives at the top.

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Contents

A Higher Cause II
11
Trust Your Instincts
25
Destroy the Hierarchy
51
Copyright

5 other sections not shown

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About the author (1997)

Ken Iverson was an American businessman. He is credited with transforming Nucor Steel from a nearly bankrupt company in the 1960s into the largest and most successful steelmaker in the United States. Trained as a metallurgist, he became a successful leader and businessman.

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