Page 107 - MS Year in Review 2020

90
Computer to continue its initial success. For the reader’s convenience, an
abbreviated version of the framework for the Assessment and development of
sustainably successful organizations is presented in Appendix A. This framework
91
was also examined in depth in an earlier Linkedin article.

One of the key weaknesses of his company was its underdeveloped operational and

management systems. Osborne Computer did not have adequate financial,
information, and control systems. For example, in an article on the rise and fall of
Adam Osborne, Steve Coll stated: “In retrospect, it seems clear that the company’s

accounting procedures were so slipshod that no one knew how bad things
were.” There was also clearly a leadership problem attributable to the
92
inexperience of Adam Osborne himself.

Osborne recognized that the firm was in crisis, but he could simply not move fast

enough to fix the problems. Osborne filed for bankruptcy under Chapter XI of the
Federal Bankruptcy code in September 1983. In his book entitled Hypergrowth:
The Rise and Fall of Osborne Computer Corporation, Adam Osborne stated, “For

93
Osborne Computer Corporation the game was over.”

As a result of the way it was led, Osborne Computer Corporation has long been
gone from the market that it helped identify and create! As Adam Osborne stated in

reflecting on his experience:

“When you become an entrepreneur, you can go up awfully fast, but you can go

down just as fast. It’s so ephemeral, like actors who end up committing
suicide. One day they’re famous, the next nobody knows who the hell they are.”
94

90 This template has a been described in previous articles in Linkedin: Eric Flamholtz, “Is Tesla Being
“Built for Sustainable Success”℠? Linkedin, September 2. 2020; Eric Flamholtz, “Is Tesla’s is being
“Built for Sustainable Success?” Part 2: Empirical Research Support for the Model Used to Assess
Tesla’s Development,” Linkedin, September14. 2020.
91 Eric Flamholtz, “Is Tesla Being “Built for Sustainable Success”℠? Linkedin, September 2. 2020
92 Steve Coll, “The Rise and Fall of Adam Osborne,” Inc. (November 1983), p. 92.
93 Adam Osborne and John Dvorak, Hypergrowth: The Rise and Fall of Osborne Computer (Berkeley,
CA: Idthekkethan, 1984), p. 120.
94 Mamis, op. cit., p. 21.

106
© Management Systems Consulting Corporation, 2020. All rights reserved