Unlikely Victory

Many companies that stray too far from their core business fail. So how is it that General Electric, a major electrical manufacturing company, ended up as one of the top U.S. chemical producers—with 1998 sales of $6.6 billion? In Unlikely Victory, Jerome T. Coe, a retired 40-year career employee with General Electric, who spent more than 20 years as a manager of the company’s chemical businesses, suggests that it was a combination of necessity, forward-thinking of the engineers, and managers wise enough to give them breathing room. “Much of what they did (then) was counter to the prevailing GE culture,” he writes. “Today, it has become the corporate culture.” The book tel…