Lessons from a Turnaround Expert

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2024

⏱️ 30 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

When a company, division, or product line has been struggling for some time, it can feel nearly impossible to get things back on track. But big turnarounds are possible, provided you have a team willing to work hard, be creative, and embrace change. When he was president and CEO of Marvel, Peter Cuneo oversaw the resurgence and sale of the media company, but even before that he had a long track track for turning around many types of consumer-facing businesses. He shares the strategies that work best for shaking up organizations and teams and boosting their performance. Cuneo is also the managing principal of Cuneo and Company.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Got 30 minutes?
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0:12.6	Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the H-Bere Ideacaste from Harvard Business Review. I'm Allison Beard.
0:33.0	When a company division or product line has been struggling for some time. It can feel nearly impossible to get things back on track.
0:46.0	When sales are down and margins are tight, there's no money to invest in better marketing, new talent, or more R&D. But big turnarounds are possible, provided you have a team willing
0:56.5	to work hard, be creative, and embrace change. Take it from our guest today. You might think that the companies he's helped lead, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Black and
1:05.7	Decker, Marvel Entertainment, don't have much in common beyond being consumer-facing. But at each of them,
1:11.6	he managed to transform weak underperforming businesses into blockbuster ones.
1:16.0	He's here to share what he's learned from these experiences and explain how you might apply those
1:21.0	lessons to execute successful turnarounds in your own spheres of influence.
1:25.7	Peter Cuneo is the former president and CEO of Marvel, a former senior executive at several other
1:30.5	companies, and currently the managing principle of Cuneon Company.
1:34.7	Peter, nice to be talking to you today.
1:36.7	Allison, it's great to with this.
1:53.2	When you see a business or product line or even a project
1:56.4	flailing over a period of time,
1:58.9	what is your first step in trying to diagnose
2:01.3	whether or not it can be saved and whether it's even worth saving.
2:05.0	Well, I've been asked to get involved in a lot of companies that were having problems.
2:10.0	Probably only chose one out of five because it's difficult.
	...

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