Why Did Frank Blake Call Bernie Marcus?

Ben Gilbert says Frank Blake called Bernie Marcus first because the stores had lost the culture Bernie built. On January 2, 2007, the board fired Bob Nardelli and named Blake, a dark-horse candidate, chief executive. Blake was a lawyer, a former Supreme Court clerk, and a GE mergers executive who had come over with Nardelli. He had not run stores. His son worked at Home Depot, so he heard what the aisles were actually like, not the headquarters version.

Bernie had left the board and did not want another GE executive in the job. Blake called anyway, then flew to Florida with Ken Langone. The first store walk Bernie took him on was at Costco, not Home Depot, because Bernie did not think the Home Depot stores still showed what a great retailer looked like. Blake brought back the inverted pyramid: customers on top, store associates under them, and the chief executive as the small point at the bottom, there to support the people who help the customer.