Book Review: How The Mighty Fall

Finished How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In in two short plane rides. It is certainly a short business book, but also good. Oh, and terrifying.

From Jim Collins, the same guy that authored Good to Great, this looks at the other side of the coin: what factors make companies fall from greatness. He comes to the conclusion that there are many different ways to fail (vs fewer to succeed) but that there are some common traits to the examples they looked at.

Like many business books, the key point can be gleaned in just a few pages. In fact, this picture says much of it in a nutshell:

However, recognizing if your company is in one of these phases (as all companies suffer from at least SOME of the symptoms) makes the book worth reading, to compared to the numerous case examples throughout the book.

The terrifying part is how often great companies are unable to see the cliff, even as they are going over it.