Sydney Finkelstein is Steven Ross Professor of Management at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and arguably the world’s most distinguished authority in this subject. According to what his research reveals, C-level executives in companies that fail share these attributes:
1. They are satisfied with “good enough” rather than continuous improvement. They do not realize that "good" is the arch enemy of "great." Their complacency and self-satisfaction are wholly unjustified...and often fatal.
2. They effectively execute the wrong strategy. They demonstrate what Peter Drucker stated in 1963: "There is surely nothing quite so useless as doing with great efficiency what should not be done at all."
3. Discourage and even punish principled dissent. For them any questions and suggestions are threatening, what they often characterize as "insubordinate." Disagreement is disloyalty.
4. “Brilliantly fulfill the wrong vision.” This is a first-cousin to #2. With all due res[ect to what Jim Collins calls "Big Hairy Audacious Goals" (BHAGs), some visions are either totally unrealistic or wholly inappropriate. Those who pursue them are on an ego trip and serve as their own travel agent.
5. Ignore “red flags” such as loss of key people and an inability to attract well-qualified candidates to replace them. Their associates think they are either "clueless" or in denial. They cling to cherished assumption and premises like a security blanket.
You may wish to check out Finkelstein’s Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes and the more recently published Think Again: Why Good Leaders Make Bad Decisions and How to Keep it From Happening to You, co-authored with Jo Whitehead and Andrew Campbell.
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