The Chiefs are one of 13 teams to go from worst to first in their division since 2003, and by Sunday evening, the Chiefs Webb site featured playoff ticket information and was selling division champion T-shirts.
The chief executive, Rick Haythornthwaite, has moved swiftly to cut jobs and sell divisions to help restore profits.
O'Neal continued to cut jobs, and, reversing some of Komansky's international expansion, he sold divisions in Canada, and scaled back operations in Japan and South Africa.
But to satisfy the government loans, he has been trying to sell divisions, a fact made harder because of A.I.G.'s opaque structure.
Some 12,000 jobs will be cut in the next two years at a cost of £120 million ($188 million), mainly by farming out administrative duties and selling divisions in the United States.
Few retailers have been buying other companies in recent years; as business has tightened, executives have looked to sell divisions instead.
We buy and sell divisions.
To mend ailing units at Intuit, Bennett hasn't ruled out anything, from selling divisions to acquisitions.
So like any company under dire straits, it is considering selling divisions, to cut costs and to reap money to make up for losses elsewhere.
But when he was hired, Khurana notes, he was criticized for his lack of vision, his refusal to sell divisions and for not making wholesale changes in management.
After that experience the company shed debt, hoarded cash (it is sitting on $5.4 billion now) and sold divisions that would have turned to poison in 2008, like its financial services operations.
