How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
Great business case book. The cases are great, the analysis is superb. The thing is, the series has less evident investigation perhaps and this book is really a book between books, but I don't mind at all. I wish Collins and his team would publish a book a year. I read the last two out of order and it would have made more sense to read them as they came out, but a great business read over all. I this cases are the best way to learn anything. Another hit by Jim Collins. Author of the immensely instructive "Built to Last" and "Good to Great".Continuing from his vast data set Collins sets out to decipher why some companies goes into a death spiral while others fight back and come back stronger. There are already some wonderful reviews on this book, so I wont go into details on the 5 stages of a company's decline and their markers, which should be readily useful for any company manager, analyst or anyone else interested in analyzing companies. Collins, as usual, goes into detail describing his research methodology. While the companies he describe going trough the 4 to 5 stages, e.g. HP, IBM, Rubbermaid etc, represent a very small percentage of companies I think there is a very strong take-away lesson from Collins' work whether you buy in to his 5 stages or not. As Collins showed with "Built to Last" there are no quick fixes to doing business, no quick solutions and no shortcuts to building a lasting company. In many ways this message is repeated in "How the Mighty Fall". Companies are usually better of at doing what they are good at and evolving that business than they are at jumping into new hairy business ventures with a flamboyant CEO etc.I thoroughly enjoy all the books by Collins as they indicate that business must be well grounded, evolve iteratively and intelligently with a focus on serving a particular basic need. It promotes strong values, clear objectives and good people in key positions.This book is highly recommended.
What do You think about How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In (2009)?
The book presents a sound model for the phases of decline of once strong companies.
—monkeyaguilar
