| 1. It was 1992, a dark time for Honda Motor
Company. Its founder, Soichiro Honda, had recently died. Rumours were circulating
that the company - maker of the best engineered Japanese cars - was about
to br absorbed by its dreaded rival. Bills were piling up from the financial
follies of the 1980s. The company had no new models and the Japanese economy
was heading downhill. Nobuhiko Kawamoto, Honda's new boss, did something
astonishing, painful, symbolic and central to the strategy that has brought
Honda back to life. What was this surprising and significant act? |
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| 2. When he joined Honda in 1963, he wangled
his way into the research department, so he could work on racing motorbikes
and engines for racing cars. As a young board member, he was threatened
with the sack for spending his time tinkering in the workshops and skipping
board meetings. One of Honda's most original racing car designs was sketched
on his doodle pad during a tedious board meeting. Who? |
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| 3. Charles Plank and Edward Rosinski together
hold 159 US patents and have been inducted into the US National Inventors
Hall of Fame. One of their key discoveries was that a synthetic catalyst
could make this product yield far more of the end product than ever before.
Which product, which end product? |
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| 4. Identify the person who said this: "I have
had a partner - Charlie Munger - for a lot of years. You have to
calibrate with Charlie, though, because Charlie says everything I do is
dumb. If he says it's really dumb, I know it is, but if he just says it's
dumb, I take that as an affirmative vote." |
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5. The year was 1950. She had brought a big
bag filled with merchandise, and she set it up and was in business at Neiman
Marcus. Stopping everyone who came in the door, she said, "Try this. I',
___________, and these are the most wonderful beauty products in the world."
Who?
Estée Lauder, who founded the Estée Lauder Co. Today
(1998), it controls over 45% of the cosmetics market in US department stores
- three times the volume of its closest competitor, |
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| 6. He is a self-made multi-billionaire CEO.
He is obsessive about mopping up water puddles in the men's restroom, colleagues
say. He has a slew of pets, including three dogs and six birds. His company
features one of the loopiest corporate cultures, where "having fun" is
an official goal. He has pinned up jumbo sized pictures of grinning employees
all over the hallway at the company's corporate headquarters in Pleasanton,
California. Who, and which company? |
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| 7. This famous person's political involvement
came with its share of controversy. Most notably, in 1975 he spent six
days giving lectures on public policy in Chile and had one brief meeting
with the right-wing dictator Augusto Pinochet. The result was a storm of
protest. When he was awarded the Nobel Prize the next year, public objections
came from all directions, including previous prize winners Linus Pauling
and David Baltimore. Who? |
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| 8. A by-product of World War II was the discovery
of this soap like product by a famous consumer goods company. The product,
made from a soap like molecule without the potentially irritating alkaline
element, is a ph-neutral, mild cleansing product. This product was first
introduced in the US in 1957. How do we know this product? |
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| 9. In 1979, which famous software that sold
millions of copies for the next five years, did a company named MicroPro
introduce? |
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| 10. Three major companies dominate the dehydrated
soups/sauces market in Europe. Two of them are Unilever (with its Bachelors
and Blue Bond brands), and CPC (with its Knorr brand). Which is the third? |