In December 2000, the board of directors of Home Depot brought in Robert Nardelli as CEO to straighten out the company. Nardelli found that Home Depot sorely needed leadership development. Its people had an admirable can-do spirit, but the cowboy culture made it hard, for instance, to rein in the mavericks for companywide product promotions or top-down initiatives. Many store managers were inexperienced or just incapable of running stores as they got bigger. Occasionally, a manager who did poorly at one store would pop up later runnning another one.
The people part of the business brought another reality to light: the top team lacked some of the expertise to make the necessary changes. Strengthening senior leadership became a priority.
He raised the education standards for store managers and launched training programs to develop leadership effectiveness.
Listing Home Depot as number 22 in the "Business Week 50" in March 2004, the magazine said of the company, "Extensive renovations and repairs are starting to pay off."
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Source: "Confronting Reality" by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan (Crown Business)