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Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes
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Sales rank 368,729
Customers rating (based on 35 reviews)
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A definitive study of executive failures-why they happen and how to prevent them. There's a scenario that keeps repeating itself in today's business climate. A company is voted one of the most admired in the world. Then three or four years later, it's in dire financial trouble. A CEO is celebrated on the covers of BusinessWeek, Forbes, and Fortune. Soon after, the company is in the midst of a disastrous merger or some other fiasco. What goes wrong in these cases? Usually it seems that the top management made some incredibly stupid mistake. But the people responsible are almost always remarkably intelligent and usually have terrific track records. Even more puzzling than the fact that brilliant managers can make bad mistakes is the way they so often magnify the damage. Once a company has made a bad misstep, it often seems as though it can't do anything right. How does this happen? Instead of rectifying their mistakes, why do business leaders regularly make them worse? To answer these questions, Sydney Finkelstein has carried out the largest research program ever devoted to business breakdowns. In Why Smart Executives Fail, he uncovers-with startling clarity and unassailable documentation-the causes regularly responsible for major business breakdowns. Why Smart Executives Fail relates the stories of great business disasters and demonstrates that there are specific, identifiable ways in which many businesses regularly make themselves vulnerable to failure. The result is a truly indispensable, practical, must-read book that explains the mechanics of executive breakdowns, how to avoid them, and what to do about them if they happen.
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| Publisher | Portfolio Hardcover | | Release date | 06/2003 | | Availability | | | Edition | Hardcover |
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 2009 Jim Collins book "How the Mighty Fall" is very similar
Both this 2004 Sydney Finkelstein book "Why Smart Executives Fail" and the 2009 Jim Collins book "How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In" carry a similar message, and even share several of the case studies.
This 2004 Finkelstein book's chapters on "Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful People" and the concluding "How Smart Executives Learn" are real gems. The 2007 Douglas Hubbard book "How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of Intangibles in Business" supplements the "How Smart Executives Learn" chapter by suggesting ways that top executives can be trained to more accurately assess risk.
Jim Collin's table of "Leadership Team Dynamics: On the Way Down versus On the Way Up" is also particularly good.
My conclusion would be that the (longer) Finkelstein book seems to include many more practical guidelines as to ways of fixing what is broken, rather than merely concentrating on how to detect what is broken.
 Great Book!
This was a very good book to read while I was in Iraq. I learned a lot from this book and has a lot of facts and history.
 Not Sure I Could Learn from Their Mistakes, but a good read anyway
I found this book to be a little bit dated. Having been published in 2003, this book uses contemporary examples of major business mistakes "taken from the headlines" of 2003. For example there is no mention or chapter on Ford's Edsel. The Edsel is considered one of the biggest business blunder of the 20th century, if not the biggest and it isn't even mentioned.
Nevertheless, the author does identify the traits of business blunders and the personalities behind the blunders. I think this book would be better suited for a Psychology student. People are people after all and we're all fallible. It is an interesting read and you will learn something, but you probably won't identify with Enron, Worldcom, Rubbermaid, and Schiwinn. Brands that have little relevance 7 years after this book was published.
Best quote from this book:
"But there is one blind spot that appears somewhere near the center of almost every major business disaster: a seriously inaccurate perception of reality among executives." Page 138.
I found this book missed the mark in exploring the politics that often set up failures.
Great for leadership training
Fascinating stories and very entertaining. Good for leadership training and mindset. The case study perspective flows very well.
Great for Research
I am working on a manuscript for a book that explores an array of mismanagement practices and attempts to highlight the mistakes that managers make that result in such problems. I purchased this book as one of my many resources to support views that I will express in my writing. I find the book to be very good, its content still holds true and it is on a subject that needs more study.
Jack Risewick
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