Why smart executives fail

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Showing Average rating 3. Rating details. More filters. Sort order. Dec 11, Jay rated it it was ok. If insights such as "Ask Questions" and "Make sure you earn more revenue than you spend" are new to you, then check out this book.

A thoroughly worthwhile read A book full of examples in the vein of 'The Innovator's Dilemma' , and 'The Fearless Organisation', and flowing reads as those are. I learnt a lot about leadership and management, and it was an enjoyable and informative process.

Definitely one I'd recommends to people who hold power, whatever your level. Nov 15, Rikki rated it liked it. Oct 09, Ko Matsuo rated it really liked it. Great book explaining the paradox of how success can breed failure.

Good examples of how business success can lead to a culture of superiority, which in turn leads to a distorted picture of reality and information breakdown. Really good discussion about how to compensate for corporate delusions.

A reminder that good product managers balance internal company pride with a healthy paranoia of not only the competition, but also of current company strategy. Jun 06, Christopher Luna rated it really liked it Shelves: business. Excellent resource that delves into the reasons behind the fall of top executives. A key theme throughout the book is that all of these executives were extremely smart, effective, experienced leaders who simply made some bad decisions for various reasons based on faulty assumptions.

Good read for anyone looking to go into long or short term management, or for those who want to know how and why some of the corporate giants fell. Dec 24, Kokopelli's Flute rated it it was ok Shelves: nonfiction. The value of the book lies in the real-world examples of failures by business leaders and corporations. On the other hand, much of the analysis and recommendations that follow are nothing new. Additionally, these latter sections could have been written in a more concise manner.

He focused systematically on the choices of individual decision makers at almost fifty failed or beleaguered companies, from AMP to WorldCom.

His book ably sums up the results of that six-year research project. Its message is less about assigning blame than in identifying the early warning signs the companies had in common, in an effort to wake up executives elsewhere.

Add to Cart failed. Please try again later. Add to Wish List failed. Remove from wishlist failed. Adding to library failed. Please try again. Follow podcast failed. Unfollow podcast failed. Stream or download thousands of included titles. Narrated by: Don Hagen. No default payment method selected. Add payment method. Companies that get their picture of reality messed up don't automatically end up failing. In every instance there was something else that went wrong.

Often there was no one around to challenge the status quo and ask the tough questions. We saw this problem at Quaker, where there was no one to challenge the Snapple acquisition; we saw this at Iridium, where there was no one willing to question the logic of that project; and we saw this at Motorola, Wang Labs, the Boston Red Sox, and others.

But why do companies fall into this trap? What are the underlying reasons why such delusional attitudes develop in organizations, attitudes that legislate not only how executives behave within their own company, but also how they interact with critical outsiders like customers and suppliers as well?

In the book, we describe "zombie businesses" that have all of these unfortunate characteristics, and that help account for many of the failures in our research.

Over the course of the research project, we were struck by how often organizations developed breakdowns in how information was managed, how people and systems were ineffectively developed and controlled, and how boards of directors proved so unsatisfying as the ultimate arbiter of vigilance in a company.