Where Have All the Leaders Gone? - Lee Iacocca

Overall Rating : B.

.A few months back, I received an e-mail titled "The Nine C's of Leadership". It basically slammed the daylights out of Dubnutz, and was purportedly written by none other than Lee Iacocca.

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I was intrigued that one of our industrial giants might actually have the chutzpah to tell it like it is, but also little leery because of all the right-wing bullsh*t lies circulated by the repugnican chicken-hawks. So I went out on the Internet and found that this indeed was written by Iacocca, and was from his new book, Where Have All The Leaders Gone?

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I'm not a big fan of celebrity-penned books (do we really want to hear Paris Hilton's philosophy of Life?), but went down to Borders and bought WHATLG anyway.

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Oh, and I forwarded the 9-C's e-mail to all my ditto-head friends (you have a lot of these when you live in Arizona and work for a chemical manufacturing company), and waited for their rebuttals. But apparently Rush hasn't told them was to think about it yet, since I only got one response, and that in effect said that Lee should be more grateful since we bailed him out when he was the CEO of Chrysler. Talk about a tepid counter-point.

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What's To Like...

The Nine C's of Leadership segment is eloquently written. In fact, the first third of WHATLG is all about politics, and the Chimperor and his lackeys fare very poorly. Talk about some wonderful chapters!

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Lee Iacocca wrote the whole book in a "chit-chat" style, making it very easy to read. And he covers every topic you can think of - the environment, the auto industry, rising gas prices, outsourcing, medical research, running for office, etc. So if it's in the headlines today, chances are Lee has, and gives, an opinion.

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What's Not To Like...

While Lee's take on politics is great, when he gets to discussing the auto industry (which is obviously near and dear to his heart), I was "able to put the book down".

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He covers a slew of topics, but a lot of them are done with a cursory approach. Can you really solve the issue of "How To Deal With Rising Gas Prices" in a mere five pages?

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There's also s lot of name-dropping in here. Wanna know what advice Lee gave the Pope? Do you really think the Pope was impressed?

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If You Can Find A Better Book, Buy It...

Bottom line - it's a good book. You may or may not get tired of Lee's "chit-chat" style. And while you might have to plod through a couple of topics that you frankly don't care about, most of them are of high-interest.

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There was one issue that really stuck with me - medical research. Lee's first wife died of diabetes, and he is determined to find a cure. To that end, he started a diabetes research foundation. What he discovered about MedRes is that no one is really interested in finding a cure. What's important is to get government grants year after year. So if/when your foundation actually happens upon a breakthrough (as was the case with Iacocca's group), the rest of the researchers in that field will not be happy. In fact, they'll be downright hostile.

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What's the worst thing that can happen to, say, the American Cancer Society? You got it - finding a cure for cancer. Such an event would not only end their reason for existence, but also end their goverment $$$. I had this pointed out many years ago. About once a year, ACS will make an "exciting" announcement. New wonder drug - (insert random chemical compound here) - shows promise in curing some types of cancer in mice!! More tests are needed to see if it works on humans!!!

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And then, that's about all you ever hear about it. Coincidentally, they make this announcement right about the time they have to apply for more grant-money from the government. Twelve months later, they make a new "exciting" announcement, touting a new wonder-chemical. Nothing is said about last year's exciting discovery.

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Now that I've let you in on this, watch for the next "exciting announcement" from the ACS, and then sit back and be amazed how this scam plays out every year.

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But I digress. Where Have All The Leaders Gone? is a good read. Give it as a Christmas present to all your ditto-head friends.