How the Mighty Fall: Book Review

Jim Collins refers to this as his ‘dark book.’ His previous books share research as to how companies excel and grow, becoming or succeeding at being great. This research was focused on companies who ‘fell’ and the five (5) stages of decline as identified from the research.

One of the interesting facets of his analysis is the ability for several of the target companies to recover from this decline. In any of the first four (4) stages, companies can turn things around. But once they enter stage 5, none of the companies were able to continue to exist or prove relevant in their fields.

Here are the Stages: 1: Habits Born of Success; 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More; 3: Denial of Risk and Peril; 4: Grasping for Salvation; 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death. Mr. Collins explains each of these titles, what they mean, and how they were manifested in the target companies. There is a call for diligence and a hard look in the mirror. None of these companies woke up one day and chose these stages. The declines were slow and initially, were easy to miss or explain away.

There are several appendices that provide additional information along with his research guidelines. A great deal of content was focused on Level 5 Leadership and its importance in any company. – CMW