He needed a plan, fast. Step by step, it's all there in Gerstner's book. Like Gerstner, Stringer leaned on a smart finance guy from outside (Chapter Three) and moved quickly to stop the red ink by cutting $2 billion in costs. To raise cash and realign the company's strategy (Chapter Six), he sold $1.5 billion in noncore businesses, such as a semiconductor factory. Last fall Sony sold a $2.8 billion, 40% stake in its financial and life insurance company in one of Japan's biggest initial public offerings. Like Gerstner, Stringer made a clear strategic choice not to follow Wall Street calls to break up the company, opting to try to turn Sony's breadth into a strength.
Along the way, Stringer surrounded himself with smart people and didn't micromanage them--partly because, like Gerstner, who had joined IBM from RJR Nabisco, the media executive didn't know enough about many of the company's business lines to do so (Chapter Two). "Given my background--which is either a strength or a weakness--I run things by people," Stringer says.
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