[.ca] Why Smart Executives Fail (ISBN 1591840457)

Yep, that's it:
Read this after hearing the interview on First Voice. Often funny, a great read for those who wonder about "management" The interview is online at http://www.7to7.net/fnk.html They have transcripts too. --J. R.

Where's the Beef?:
I was disappointed that there was so little helpful information contained in this book. Many of the examples were simply high level overviews of well known business failures. The authors did their best to demonstrate "Why" these execs failed, but I think they failed to deliver on "What" I could learn from their mistakes. I only made two notes to keep after reading the entire book while on vacation. Bummer...

It raises questions which are hard to avoid:
Sydney's book brings important question for those who practice and teach leadership - why could reasons for managerial success and failure often be the same? The answer is organizational context. There is no leadership in vacuum. So if you get rid of those qualities which author calls as habits of unsuccessful people there is still no quarantee for success. Proper understanding of your organization is the key to take real advantage of many suggestions this insightful book offers and not to be misled by some of them.

Fantastic Read:
I was stunned by this book. As a successful executive who reads several business books a year, I am usually disappointed by both the ideas and the writing style of most writers-especially strategy professors. Professor Finkelstein's book is the exception. It is beautifully written; has excellent examples based on REAL RESEARCH; offers ways to avoid making mistakes yourself; and it comes at just the right time for those of us running large organizations. Bravo, Professor!

Disappointing, shallow book:
I read this book based on a positive newspaper review and was very disappointed. Finkelstein puts together a long list of reasons for failure, things to look for in companies which will fail soon and ways to avoid failure. One problem is that the study is flawed by a lack of anything like a control group. For example, he makes a big deal about Motorola's reluctance to venture into digital cell phones in the mid 90s -- surely a big recent corporate failure -- but then doesn't examine a situation where a company (correctly) refused to overhaul its product line (such instances do occur). The lesson he draws is excessively oversimplified and I'm not sure it applies anywhere beyond the cell phone market of the mid 90s. Another example: Finkelstein points out to cases of CEO hubris, in which an invincible company head leads the company to ruin for various reasons (poor listening, a sense of invincibility, a reluctance to tolerate criticism, et al). The potential dangers of an excessively headstrong leader is no news to either business or general readers. But Finkelstein doesn't acknowledge that headstrong leaders can often be vital assets to a company. He doesn't go into enough detail and instead delivers an incomplete, unsatisfying answer to the problem such CEOs present. In general, the book is marked by shallow analysis, repetitive and overarching review of the case studies, and underdeveloped understanding of marketing and finance (for example, Finkelstein makes a howling mistake in discussing Tyco's accounting), let alone technological trends. The sheer amount of repetition is also unhelpful -- Finkelstein must refer to the Motorola analysis a dozen times in the second half of the book without ever expanding on it -- and the endless series of lists in the book's second half... well, how can one really "use" 12 bullet points from list #7? Bad organization, which reflects an inability to boil down his case into a shorter, more concise summary. Sophisticated businesspeople will have no use for this sort of analysis. Less advanced readers will not profit from the book's weak organization, which betrays a lack of thought. Not recommended.