Lessons from the Titans book club questions

1. 1.

   The authors argue that industrial companies are better management laboratories than tech companies. Do you find that persuasive? What is lost by studying management through a technology-company lens?

2. 2.

   Danaher applies the same improvement system to every acquisition it makes. What does that consistency of method require of the people who run Danaher, and what does it prevent?

3. 3.

   Dave Cote's 'investing in the future while delivering today' formula sounds obvious. What makes it difficult in practice, and what pressures push organizations in the opposite direction?

4. 4.

   The GE case study is essentially a cautionary tale about Jack Welch's legacy as well as Immelt's. How do you think about crediting or blaming a previous CEO for a company's later problems?

5. 5.

   Capital allocation is described as the core skill of industrial management. Who in your professional life makes decisions most like capital allocation, and do they think about it systematically?

6. 6.

   The book is written by equity analysts. How does the investor's perspective on management quality differ from, say, a management consultant's or an operations researcher's?

7. 7.

   Many of the management principles here — discipline, consistency, measuring what matters — appear in other business books. What does the industrial context add to those ideas?

8. 8.

   The authors are critical of GE's financial engineering under Welch in a way that most business books of the Welch era were not. What made that critique possible to write after the fact and so difficult during the period?

9. 9.

   Lessons from the Titans is built on decades of analyst coverage. What kinds of knowledge accumulate from watching a company for fifteen years that can't be captured in a single research report?

10. 10.

    The book focuses on large, public industrial companies. How much of what it argues applies to smaller private businesses, and what is different?

11. 11.

    If you were advising a CEO of a mid-size industrial company, which single lesson from the book would you lead with?

How to run the discussion

• Pick six to eight, not all of them. An hour of real discussion covers fewer questions than anyone expects, and racing the list is what makes a book club feel like homework.
• Open with what people noticed, not what they concluded. Asking for a verdict first hardens opinions before anyone has heard each other.
• Let the disagreement run. The questions below that split a room are the ones worth the time; the ones everyone answers the same way can be skipped.
• Ask the quiet person a specific question. A direct, narrow question is far easier to answer than an open invitation to contribute.