My Leadership Excellence magazine article “Seven lessons from a turnaround CEO”

  • Book Published:  “Learn to Whisper” by Robert F. Amter

    Organized into 101 successful management lessons and separated into 17 subjects, “Learn to Whisper” is everything a CEO needs to know not just to manage, but how to write and execute the turnaround plan to fix distressed manufacturing companies. “Learn to Whisper” is available on this Amazon link: https://tinyurl.com/ya3sttmk Tweet

  • Work at Home or in the Office?

    There are obvious benefits to the employee of working from home. However the negatives to the company are too significant to ignore. In every turnaround of a distressed company I have fixed, the absence of face-to-face cross-functional communication was glaringly absent. Cross-functional communication is defined as employees from every function meeting as a group on […]

  • What’s wrong with General Motors?

    It seems that #GeneralMotors has deteriorated and is in trouble yet again with: GM posted a decline in net income of 141% in 2018. GM registered a $4 billion net loss in 2017. GM recently announced the closure of 6 manufacturing plants. Meanwhile, Toyota actually increased net income almost 40% in 2018, and earned a net […]

  • Was GE correct in replacing its CEO?

    A nagging thought kept running through my mind when I read #GeneralElectric had replaced Mr. John Flannery as Chief Executive Officer after just 14 months on the job: Was he given enough time to fix this huge severely distressed $120 billion company? My answer is no… It would take at least 3 years to fix a […]

  • China’s Debt Crisis

    #China may be forced to continue to increase its debt position. Their cash flow future looks grim. China’s debt is largely held by corporations. The problem is a fair number of their small and large companies are poorly managed. Their inefficient equipment and systems results in high-cost, money-losing operating companies. This results in deficit cash […]

Bob Amter

Since 1991, Bob Amter has operated as a
Chief Executive Officer and Advisor to distressed and profitable manufacturing and service companies.

Prior to 1991, he was a 15-year veteran of
$20 billion Emerson Electric Co. as a division president.

Henry Paulson’s Book: “Dealing with China”

Henry Paulson, Jr. has a new book titled “Dealing with China”. Is this a practical treatise on working with China? Seventeen of the book’s twenty chapters are detailed descriptions of Mr. Paulson’s own personal history while working with Goldman Sachs, as US Treasury Secretary and with the Paulson Institute. It is an interesting personal story. However, the autobiographical […]

What will the world look like in a decade?

“Stratfor has 11 chilling predictions for what the world will look like a decade from now” by Armin Rosen, Business Insider, June 16, 2015 The private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, recently published its Decade Forecast in which it projects the next 10 years of global political and economic developments. In many ways, Stratfor […]

My Leadership Excellence magazine article “Seven lessons from a turnaround CEO”

Leadership Excellence magazine published my article: “Mastering Leadership – Seven lessons from a turnaround CEO” By Robert F. Amter There are many theories about what it takes to be an effective Chief Executive Officer.  Most are based on observation and research.  They lack the hands-on, in the trenches experience of what it really takes to […]

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Reason I wrote my book “Learn to Whisper”

Click on this link for a more complete description of “Learn to Whisper”

The reason I wrote “Learn to Whisper”:

My conclusion after operating as a Turnaround Chief Executive Officer for more than twenty-five years is that the majority of this country’s top management is far from first-rate. In fact top management, particularly at the chief executive officer level, is at best average with a large number that can be rated mediocre. This lack of management competence has seen this country’s market leaders lose sizeable market share to foreign manufacturers able to export better quality and lower cost products to the USA. It has seen manufacturing and service operations unnecessarily moved to foreign countries. All of which has negatively affected the economy, severely damaged former blue-chip corporations and seen quality jobs lost.

It is quite common to discover that companies struggling with this inability to compete with foreign companies have been simply mismanaged. The once successful business deteriorated because of an incompetent chief executive officer and weak senior management

Why doesn’t this nation have first-rate management? Inadequate training. Chief executive officers and vice presidents learn “on the job”. A number get promoted based on personality, political connections and drive – not merit. They are not carefully screened for the potential to become successful at managing. For some all that is needed is a well-written resume, the right interviewing style and the inability of a new employer to accurately assess skills, performance and potential.

Compare this to the process doctors go through. From medical school to internship to residency to a senior role after years of education, experience and continuous training their progress and capabilities are constantly monitored even after they become senior in the profession. Generals and Admirals go through a similar protocol. They must prove themselves in low-level assignments before they are judged qualified for senior positions. Unqualified applicants in both professions are culled out. What can be done to improve management competence? Education, on-the-job training and job performance monitoring. My book will educate people on the subject of managing. Its 101 management lessons are separated into the 17 subjects managers need to know.