Page 102 - MS Year in Review 2020

Based upon our research and experience, the finding is that all business

organizations must manage both dimensions in order to be
successful. However, the underlying cause of the “Icarus Syndrome” is the failure
of leadership to manage both dimensions required for sustainable organizational

success. The classic problem of rapidly growing organizations is in their focus on the
product dimension, they tend to neglect the organizational or infrastructure
dimension. This is what causes the growing pains and ultimately can lead to their

demise.

In the short term, an organization can cope with its growing pains by using the
extraordinary revenue that always accompanies “Dazzling Success” to “mask” its

problems. However, in the long run that “extraordinary revenue” will always be
dissipated from increased competition or internal operating problems, leaving the
organization vulnerable to problems without the “extra” resources to cope with

them or mask them.

OSBORNE COMPUTER: A CLASSIC EXAMPLE OF THE

“ICARUS SYNDROME” 86

In this section, we will now examine a classic illustration of the “Icarus syndrome”

involving the rise and fall of Osborne Computer. In the highly competitive early
years of the personal computer industry (the late 1970s and early 1980s), Osborne
Computer was a very well-known and successful company. Specifically, the firm

reached revenues $100 million in two years, but then experienced a crisis brought
about by a failure to manage the company’s rapid growth effectively. Finally, it filed
for bankruptcy!

86 This section is adapted from Eric Flamholtz and Yvonne Randle, is The Crisis Leadership Playbook,
Vandeplas Publishing, 2020.

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