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 Remarkable Turnaround
David Magee provides an interesting and compelling account of how Carlos Ghosn turned around Nissan. This was a remarkable turnaround which transformed a company which was collapsing, mired in debt and lacking direction and focus to one of the leading vehicles manufacturing firms in the world.
Ghosn performed this outstanding turnaround by cutting Nissan's huge debt, drastically cutting costs, getting rid of non-performing assets, streamlining management and restoring the company's competitiveness.
The book provides essential insights into the leadership and management style of Ghosn which provides important lessons to companies that may wish to effect an economic and financial turnaround of their organization. The author has detailed knowledge of Ghosn which he often quotes, making it possible to understand his personality. Part of the secret of Ghosn's success appears to be his cross-cultural management skills. He was born in Brazil, educated in France and was of Lebanese descent. Ghosn's track record is impressive. He turned around Michelin in the important Brazil market and spearheaded the successful merger of Michelin with Uniroyal-Goodrich. He did the same trick with Renault in France where he revitalized their sales, market share and profitability.
Among the leadership skills that Ghosn used in his turnaround is the need to be a good listener, being transparent, be a good team player, and establish trust and respect
This is an excellent book on Ghosn and his leadership style that is recommended to those who may wish to turn their organisations around or just wish to learn about developments in the auto-industry. His simple writing style makes it easily understandable to a wide audience.
The Ultimate Motivator
If you would like to read about how a no nonsense guy took Nissan from being extinct to one of the top automotive companies in the world you need to read this book. It has many great lessons and principles that you can apply to your everyday life or job and turn your life around!
 shallow
David Magee's book tells the very interesting story of how Nissan's fortunes were revived by "a fiery, intellectual, Brazilian-born, French educated man of Lebanese descent, Carlos Ghosn".
Although Nissan was established in 1933, it had its heyday in the 1960s when products like its Z car took the American market by storm and its Datsun brand was a global brand leader. By the late 1990s, Nissan had lost its focus and direction. Whereas Honda and Toyota were both going from strength to strength, Nissan languished, its glory days seemingly gone forever. Faced with a mountain of debt, they allowed the French Renault company to buy what was effectively a controlling stake in the company.
Renault dispatched Ghosn to Tokyo, where Ghosn performed what can only be described as miracles. He slashed Nissan's debt burden, he restored its cost competitiveness, he sold off non performing assets, he reorganized its finances and streamlined its management systems. Magee tells us that he even inspired the F-Marinos, the soccer team Nissan sponsor, to advance from languishing in 13th place in its league division to winning the competition, all in the space of a year.
How could one relatively young man accomplish so much in such a short period of time? Magee attributes his massive successes to the homespun wisdom of Fr. Lagrovole, a Jesuit priest, who taught Ghosn at school in Lebanon! Lagrovole advised his young charge to listen before he speaks and to understand where everyone is coming from in cultural and other terms.
Armed with this advice, Ghosn set out to take to the corporate world by storm. Before reviving Nissan's fortunes, he restored Michelin's profitability in its key Brazilian market. Having then organized the merger of Uniroyal -Goodrich and Michelin, he was head hunted by Renault and quickly revived their fortunes in Europe. Having solved their European problems, Ghosn was dispatched to Tokyo to reinvigorate the newly acquired Nissan company.
Ghosn, in some ways, comes across as a comic book hero. And in fact, he was made the hero of a Japanese manga comic book, which he helped write and which Japanese salary men eagerly read in the hope of picking up some managerial tips from this remarkable man.
Fr. Lagrovole's advice apart, they will find few tips in this book which tells us that Ghosn's forte seems to be at cross-cultural management and at paying attention to both the minutest detail and overall strategy. There are no worthwhile insights into the mind of this remarkable strategist. We hear, unsurprisingly, given his results, that he works very hard but likes to devote his weekends to his family but we get no inclination of why he is so brilliant and how we lesser mortals can learn from his successes and his failures, assuming, if we dare, that he has ever failed at anything.
We are told that the Nissan revival has been a great success. But, as with his earlier successes, the synergies to Renault are not explained. We are not even told what Renault hoped to gain by taking over Nissan. Instead, we are told on pages 207/8 that "Ghosn stressed time and time again that he and others were at Nissan for the good of Nissan, not for the good of Renault."
But it does not make sense that Renault should take over Nissan so that Nissan would benefit. Renault's management is supposed to work in the interests of Renault's shareholders, not Nissan's. We are told that Renault hopes the Nissan merger will boost Renault's sales in Indonesia. But, just as we are not told why Renault failed to merge with Volvo, so also are we not told why an unstable country like Indonesia stands at the center of Renault's projected synergy gains.
Instead, Magee informs us that Nissan has gained so much from the Renault alliance that it might soon be strong enough to divorce itself from the French company entirely. If so, how did Ghosn's successes with Nissan benefit Renault and, Indonesia apart, has the Nissan merger strengthened Renault's position in the auto market against the formidable opposition of such titans as Toyota, Honda, Ford, General Motors, Daimler and Volkswagen?
Instead of addressing those key managerial and strategic questions, Magee wastes too much time discussing such things as Mississippi's race riots in the 1960s. The result is a shallow book that does not do justice to the very important topics it purports to cover.
 You will know more about the Nissan revival than the one Carlos Ghosn wrote
Obviously this book has not been written by a specialist in management but it gives you some of the management tools that Carlos Ghosn and his team used to save Nissan. One of them is probably the use of cross functional teams (CFT). I bet that Carlos Ghosn is the new Jack Welch. Future will tell!
 Too Much Padding
The story of how a foreigner rescued Nissan would make a great book, but this isn't it. The writing is pedestrian, but, worse, there's too much padding. Magee takes a handful of basic points about Ghosn's management technique, and repeats it throughout the book, providing little illumination about the specifics. Shorn of the repetition and generalities, you could take all the content and reduce it to maybe 25 pages.
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