Book Review - The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies by Jagdish N. Sheth
Category Book Review
In terms of business books, I've always found it interesting how today's hot model corporation can become tomorrow's disgraced icon. You wonder what went wrong at what point to lead them down the wrong path. This pattern is covered in the book The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies: ...And How to Break Them by Jagdish N. Sheth. I think a number of the leading companies in today's headlines could take some lessons from these pages.
Contents: Why Do Good Companies Go Bad?; Denial - The Cocoon of Myth, Ritual, and Orthodoxy; Arrogance - Pride Before the Fall; Complacency - Success Breeds Failure; Competency Dependence - The Curse of Incumbency; Competitive Myopia - A Nearsighted View of Competition; Volume Obsession - Rising Costs and Falling Margins; The Territorial Impulse - Culture Conflicts and Turf Wars; The Best Cure is No Cure At All; Endnotes
Each chapter in this book goes into a particular trait that can doom a company's long-term survival. For instance, denial often manifests itself with a company believing that its success is due to some inherent greatness that will always be there. In reality, success is often something determined by chance interacting with a good idea. Once the rest of the world catches up, that idea advantage disappears regardless of how much the company may deny that the environment has changed. Sheth does an excellent job in providing examples of companies who have fallen prey to each problem. For denial, it's Xerox ignoring emerging technologies, A&P ignoring the changing tastes of the American shopper, and GM ignoring the growing excellence of foreign autos. Granted, it's easy to apply hindsight to see how these situations unfolded, while at the time the decision to pursue a particular direction does not come with a guarantee of any particular results. But still, knowing these different problems beforehand can help to guard against making the same mistakes.
Being in the technology industry, I could relate to many of these situations. A certain large software company in the Pacific Northwest could easily qualify for a number of them. Armed with this material, it becomes a bit easier to imagine how endgames might play out. And if you're a stock investor, this book could easily save you lots of money by allowing you to examine company stock in the light of past industry failures. Either way, it's an interesting read, one that's sure to have you looking at your own organization and wondering if you're next...
In terms of business books, I've always found it interesting how today's hot model corporation can become tomorrow's disgraced icon. You wonder what went wrong at what point to lead them down the wrong path. This pattern is covered in the book The Self-Destructive Habits of Good Companies: ...And How to Break Them by Jagdish N. Sheth. I think a number of the leading companies in today's headlines could take some lessons from these pages.
Contents: Why Do Good Companies Go Bad?; Denial - The Cocoon of Myth, Ritual, and Orthodoxy; Arrogance - Pride Before the Fall; Complacency - Success Breeds Failure; Competency Dependence - The Curse of Incumbency; Competitive Myopia - A Nearsighted View of Competition; Volume Obsession - Rising Costs and Falling Margins; The Territorial Impulse - Culture Conflicts and Turf Wars; The Best Cure is No Cure At All; Endnotes
Each chapter in this book goes into a particular trait that can doom a company's long-term survival. For instance, denial often manifests itself with a company believing that its success is due to some inherent greatness that will always be there. In reality, success is often something determined by chance interacting with a good idea. Once the rest of the world catches up, that idea advantage disappears regardless of how much the company may deny that the environment has changed. Sheth does an excellent job in providing examples of companies who have fallen prey to each problem. For denial, it's Xerox ignoring emerging technologies, A&P ignoring the changing tastes of the American shopper, and GM ignoring the growing excellence of foreign autos. Granted, it's easy to apply hindsight to see how these situations unfolded, while at the time the decision to pursue a particular direction does not come with a guarantee of any particular results. But still, knowing these different problems beforehand can help to guard against making the same mistakes.
Being in the technology industry, I could relate to many of these situations. A certain large software company in the Pacific Northwest could easily qualify for a number of them. Armed with this material, it becomes a bit easier to imagine how endgames might play out. And if you're a stock investor, this book could easily save you lots of money by allowing you to examine company stock in the light of past industry failures. Either way, it's an interesting read, one that's sure to have you looking at your own organization and wondering if you're next...
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