Bloggers Book Study: How The Mighty Fall

Once again welcome back to the Blogger Book Study. Today we will be looking in to Stage 5 of the fall and We'll Founded Hope. Lets dive in.

Stage 5: Capitulation To Irrelevance or Death
This is the Final stage of decline. The out of control downward spiral.
Bill Lazier, professor at Stanford stated "Never forget, You pay your bills with cash. You can be profitable and bankrupt"
There's 2 versions of Stage 5:
1- Those in power believe that capitulation offers a better overall outcome than continuing to fight.
2- Those in power continue the struggle, they run out of options, the enterprise dies, or shrinks into utter irrelevance.
By the time a company moves through Stages 1, 2, 3, and 4, those in power become exhausted, dispirited, and eventually abandon hope. And when you abandon hope, you should be preparing for the end.
Even some of the smartest and most capable leaders can find themselves unable to control their company's destiny if the accumulated impact of Stage 1-4 destroy their cash position.
If you cannot marshal a compelling answer to the Q: What would be lost, and how would the world be worse off, if we ceased to exist? then perhaps capitulation is the wise path.

Well-Founded Hope
Collins tells the story of the dark days of Xerox, when the company what in Stage 4. How they brought on Anne Mulcahy as a last resort. "Mulcahy could have perpetuated a Stage 4 doom loop by setting forth to utterly smash the culture and revolutionize the company overnight. Instead she, retorted to those who said she would need to kill the culture to save the company, "I am the culture. If I can't figure out how to bring the culture with me, I'm the wrong person for the job" (WOW) It was about Xerox, not about her.
Xerox. Nucor. IBM. Texas Instruments. Pitney Bowes. Nordstrom. Disney. Boeing. HP. Merck. They all took at least one tremendous fall at some point in its histroy and recovered.
In every case leaders emerged who broke the trajectory of deline and simply refused to give up on the idea of not only survival, but ultimate triumph despite the most extreme odds.
These leaders use decline as a Catalyst.
"A crisis is a terrible thing to waste"
If you have not yet fallen, beware the temptation to proclaim a crisis when none exists.
The right people will drive improvement, whether standing on a burning platform or not, and they never take well to manipulation.

Well thats it. I would encourage you to read throguh the book if you didn't theres lots of gold and incredible storys. Just to much to state here.
Hope you enjoyed the book and learning from it.
Next week Monday we kick of our final book of the Bloggers Book Study. Axiom by Bill Hybels and Pastor Troy will be starting it.