The Turnaround Experience is a study of 16 attempted business turnarounds, each studied for twenty years. Nine were successful and seven unsuccessful, the differences owing to the strategies employed, the managerial skills, and character traits on the part of the people involved.The proposition advanced here is that the successful turnarounds focuses involved conscientious, carefully orchestrated efforts aimed at improving the firm's effectiveness as an efficient low-cost producer of increasingly differentiated quality products simultaneously. This study also revealed that successful turnarounds involve leaders who focus on operations, possess strong ethical values, have good personal reputations, and follow the principles of fair play in dealing with employees, creditors, suppliers, and customers.The 16 cases were drawn from actual documented histories occurrences spanning more than 80 years from 1902 to 1988 in the automobile and agricultural equipment industries where much material is available on the events and the characteristics of the people involved.