Performance Without Compromise: How Emerson Consistently Achieves Winning Results.

• Author: Marshall, Jeffrey
• Position: BookSHELF - Brief Article - Book Review

Performance Without Compromise: How Emerson Consistently Achieves Winning Results. By Charles F. Knight, with Davis Dyer. Harvard Business School Press, 245 pages. $29.95

In some ways, the story of Emerson Electric sounds a bit like that of a family company: In the 46 years from 1954 to 2000, it had only two CEOs. The second of those, Charles F. Knight, served from 1973 to 2000, becoming chief executive at age 37 and leading the company on a tremendous growth spurt that vaulted revenues 15-fold and earnings 18-fold by the time he retired. During that span, moreover, return on shareholders' equity averaged 15 percent a year.

An enviable record, to be sure, and one worth trying to understand. That's why Knight, now chairman emeritus at Emerson, and his co-author Dyer, a consultant, attempt to explain it. The book looks back over Knight's tenure, providing both a historical chronicle of the decisions Emerson made and a framework for how it was run. In the course of that...