Page 102 - (DK) The Business Book

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IN CONTEXT
THE WORST FOCUS
Success and failure
KEY DATES
DISEASE THAT c.500 BCE The ancient Greeks
coin the term “hubris” to
describe a form of pride that
loses touch with reality and
AFFLICTS retribution or downfall.
leads to “nemesis”—a fatal

2001 Kenneth Lay, CEO
EXECUTIVES of Enron, sends employees an
email saying “our performance
has never been stronger.”
Four months later, Enron files
IS EGOTISM for bankruptcy.
2002 US activist Herbert

as great a danger in the 21st
HUBRIS AND NEMESIS London claims that hubris is
century as in ancient Greece.
2009 Jim Collins identifies five
stages of corporate decline in
How the Mighty Fall.

ven iconic companies can
falter, fail, and become
E irrelevant. History repeatedly
shows that successful corporate
goliaths—such as Swissair, Enron,
and Lehman Brothers—can fall from
greatness. The list of possible causes
is long and includes management
complacency, poor marketing, poor
products, strategic blindness, a
weak economic environment, or
simply bad luck. However, in many
cases, paradoxically, success is the
catalyst for failure.
This is because success can
lead to an overconfidence that
blinds business owners and
managers to the real state of affairs.
Meanwhile, they also start to