Here are the translations: My years at General Motors

Author: Sloan
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-09-01
Features: Alfred P. Sloan's My Years with General Motors was an instant bestseller upon its publication in 1964, which was two years before his death in 1966 at the age of 90. The book has remained a favorite among managers and students of management. Every person who has taken my recommendation to read this book—over the decades, I have recommended it to friends, clients, and students—has found it captivating and immensely enjoyable to read. But Sloan seemed uninterested in making readers "enjoy" it. Over more than two decades of friendship—with our bond beginning in 1943 and ending only with his death in 1966—his only outburst toward me was when I praised the book in a book review in The New York Times for enabling readers to "derive great enjoyment from reading it." Sloan accused me of deliberately misleading readers. He said the book was not written to make readers "enjoy" it but to establish a new profession—the professional manager—and to detail the role of the professional manager as a leader and decision-maker. Indeed, Sloan's work as a designer and architect of management was a key factor in America's outstanding performance during World War II. It enabled the U.S. industry to mobilize and achieve record output levels, recovering from a slump of unpreparedness and low morale in just one night. Moreover, this laid the foundation for the United States' global economic leadership in the post-war 1940s and was the primary lesson Japan learned from us after World War II, which transformed Japan into an economic powerhouse. My Years with General Motors provides a detailed description of the early innovation and development of General Motors' fundamental corporate management policies and strategic concepts, such as planning and strategy, continuous operations, financial growth, and leadership.