Just finished How the Mighty Fall by Jim Collins, author of Good to Great.  As the name connotes, it’s about what contributes to the fall of once-great companies. 

He says there are five stages in the process of falling:

1. Hubris Born of Success
2. Undisciplined Pursuit of More
3. Denial of Risk and Peril
4. Grasping for Salvation
5. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

Here are some things I picked up from it:

• “Don’t try to come up with the right answers; focus on coming up with good questions.”
• “There are more ways to fall than to become great.”
• When grasping for salvation “Common ‘saviors’ include a charismatic visionary leader, a bold but untested strategy, a radical transformation, a dramatic cultural revolution, a hoped-for blockbuster product, a ‘game changing’ acquisition, or any number of other silver-bullet solutions.”
• “Great companies foster a productive tension between continuity and change.”
• “Everyone in a key seat should be able to respond to the question ‘What do you do?’ not with a job title, but with a statement of personal responsibility.”
• “Many ‘overnight success’ stories are about twenty years in the making.”