Corporate Turnaround Quotes

When I went into GM there was a lack of morale. The company had gone bankrupt and the people who worked there were embarrassed. Underneath all of, though, there was a will to show what they were capable of, but nobody knew exactly what to do.

Steve Jobs has been right twice. The first time we got Apple. The second time we got NeXT. The Macintosh ruled. NeXT tanked. Still, Jobs was right both times.

Through his deferential yet decidedly determined demeanor, Pope Francis is not only setting a superior spiritual standard, but he is also leading a thorough transformation of the Catholic Church - rivaling any brand revitalization or corporate turnaround you could name.

I see myself as a private-equity investor that helps rebuild companies. Restructuring is a cottage industry in that there aren't that many serious practitioners.

In taking Dell private, we plan to go back to our roots, focusing on the entrepreneurial spirit that made Dell one of the fastest-growing and most successful companies in history.

Apple was very close to bankruptcy and to irrelevance [but] you learn a lot about life through death, and I learnt a lot about vital corporations by experiencing a non-vital corporation. You would have thought that, when what stands between you and bankruptcy is some money, your focus would be on making some money, but that was not [Steve Jobs’] preoccupation. His observation was that the products weren’t good enough and his resolve was, we need to make better products. That stood in stark contrast to the previous attempts to turn the company around.

I've actually taken companies public, I've actually busted companies, I've actually gone broke.

Don't mess with Sergio Marchionne.

If ailing British companies such as Rolls-Royce, Land Rover, British Airways and Cadbury can be turned around, there is still hope for the BBC.

In 1980, aided by $1.5 billion in loan guarantees from the U.S. government and his own pitchman routines on television, Lee Iacocca brought Chrysler back from the abyss.

You've just got to get people organized and tell them the truth. There aren't any magic tricks to it. You know, sometimes it's pretty amazing. Actually, I mentioned a pretty striking case of this in "Crisis and Hope," which was the Caterpillar case in the early 1990s.

We brought Safeco back from the brink of failure.

You can't delegate turning a company around.

Our job and commitment is to rebuild Ericsson to be successful long-term.