I recommend reading all three books of the series. This presentation covers only "How the Mighty Fall..."

1. How the Mighty Fall
and why some companies never give in
Jun 15, 2012
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2. Background…..
• Jim Collins and team researched and published
the first two books –
• Built to Last: Successful Habits of Visionary
Companies
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make
the Leap... and Others Don't
• Some of the companies cited in Good to Great
went bankrupt
• Started a research paper on cause for that –
which became the third book – “How the
Mighty Fall….”
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3. Silent Creep of Impending doom
Fall of the Mighty
•Bank of America
•Motorola
•Addressograph
•Ames How would you know?
•Circuit City
•Merck
•Rubbermaid
•Scott Paper
•Zenith
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4. Five Stages of Decline
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5. Hubris Born of Success
•Success entitlement, Arrogance
•Neglect of Primary Flywheel
•“What” replaces “Why”
•Decline in Learning Orientation
•Discounting the role of Luck
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6. Undisciplined Pursuit of More
•Unsustainable quest for growth
•Undisciplined discontinuous leaps
•Missing “Right” People
•Cash Erosion
•Bureaucracy
•Problematich Succession to Power
•Personal Interest above Org interest
Augustus Ceasar
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7. Denial of Risk and Peril
•Amplify positive, deny negative
•Big bets/bold goals lacking validations
•Huge downside risk on ambiguous data
•Erosion of healthy confrontation
•Externalize Blame
•Obsessive reorganizations
•Imperious Detachment
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8. Grasping for Salvation
•Series of Silver Bullets
•Grasping for a Leader-as-savior
•Panic and Haste
•Radical Change
•“Revolution” with Fanfare
•Hype Precedes Results
•Initial upswings followed by failures
•Confusion and Cynicism
•Chronic Restructuring
•Erosion of Financial Strength
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9. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death
•Run out of cash
•Debt Mounts to unmanageable level
•Bankruptcy/Sale/Close down
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10. Well Founded Hope
•Ability to comeback
•Most important – Great team needed
•Level 5 leadership
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11. Questions?
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