Idea 15 - Decentralization As the largest maker of automobiles for as long as most of us can remember, General Motors looms very large in the world of manufacturing, even if its number one ranking today is less than secure. It also looms large in the world of management ideas, having been a touchstone for the concept of the modern corporation for more than half a century. What GM did in the first half of the 20th century still reverberates in management practice, and its most influential corporate innovation was decentralization. Management has much to thank GM for - it gave them Peter Drucker for a start. Under the leadership of Alfred P. Sloan, GM reinvented both itself and organizational structure; though it was Drucker who analysed what had been done and reflected upon it for the benefit of others in Concept of the Corporation. Later, Sloan wrote about it too, in My Years with General Motors, famously described by Microsoft's Bill Gates as 'probably the best book...