From Worst to First : Behind the Scenes of Continental's Remarkable Comeback
Author: Gordon Bethune
List Price: $19.95
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ISBN: 0471356522
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons (16 August, 1999)
Sales Rank: 22,519
Average Customer Rating: 3.74 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 2 out of 5
From worst to First to Very Boring!!
I am sure that what Gordon Bethune has done for Continental is truly worth a great deal of appreciation. However, the account given in this book fails to describe the turnaround process at Continental in an exciting and informational way. It is too repetitive. I think that I understand when a person says that "the employees hated Continental" after I read that five times, but to mention that in every second paragraph is unnecessary. What Bethune fails to give us is interesting incidents where he actually used the strategies that he employed. Although the "Go Forward Plan" has been broken into four parts, each part somehow connects to something else in the middle of the section and talks about something not concerning that section at all. But above all, if the Continental employees contributed to buy Bethune a Harley Davidson, it shows that he did an incredible job at Continental. So, maybe he should stick to fixing airlines and leave the writing to someone else.
Rating: 4 out of 5
Strong Management / Business Redesign Book
In From Worst to First Continental CEO Gordon Bethune discusses how he and his team turned around Continental Airlines (then on the verge of bankruptcy) and produced the profitable, customer-friendly airline that Continental is today.The book is a good read, filled with numerous examples. Bethune takes the reader through the process that occurred at Continental and comments extensively on how the techniques that he applied could be applied to other businesses. However, Bethune neglects, in many cases to explain the thought process behind the decision that he made. In some cases this is expected: most readers will obviously know that a business needs capital to operate. In others, such as some of his less generally-accepted employee relations techniques, he explains only what he did not why he did it. Because of this, the book is more of a "how to" than a case study on Continental.
Also of note, this book primarily deals with a turn-around situation, and while some of the techniques presented are clearly applicable in any business, others deal specifically with a business that is well established and experiencing difficulty. Other techniques deal primarily with large organizations, and may be of only minimal use to an executive at a smaller company.
Over all From Worst to First is a good read, and the information and techniques provided will well justify the time spent reading it!
Rating: 4 out of 5
Worth seeing book with simple but important knowledge
This book told the story of the great comeback of Continental Airline in an interesting and straight-forward way. We can understand clearly how Continental could do that within 2 years after Gordon Bethune became the Chief Executive Officer. Continental Airline used to be a low-cost, employee-hated, huge leverage company with terrible service and financial situation. The new CEO Gordon Bethune used a ”„Go Forward Plan”¦ which emphasize the product, employees, suppliers and creditor relationship to turnaround this huge but ”„horrible”¦ airline giant.
Gordon Bethune put the emphasis on the product itself, making employees as business partners through communication, admitting and apologize for the mistakes, controlling financial situation. This shows that transformation requires a lot more than controlling cost.
The structure of the book is clear with key points always showing on the topic. Gordon Bethune used numerous examples and stories to illustrate the strategies he applied and what are the rationales behind. Despite the repetition of some contents, it is full of knowledge!
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