246 Inverting the Paradox of Excellence
service so that it would not have to rely on retailers or independent contractors. The combination of
product innovation, strong retailer functions, aggressive marketing, and fair-trade pricing enabled
both the major appliance and small appliance businesses to be very protable and to continue to be
leaders in their respective markets.
Postwar conditions warranted a repositioning of GE and change was overdue. But Cordiner’s
response was somewhat abrupt, in that, within a month of taking charge, he began to dismantle
what Swope had created. A champion of the organization as machine mind-set of his day, Cordiner
viewed decentralization as the primary remedy to GE’s ills. So Cordiner broke up the works and ...