How the Mighty Fall

And Why Some Companies Never Give In

By: Jim Collins

Narrated by: Jim Collins

Length: 4 hrs and 41 mins

Publisher's summary

Decline can be avoided. Decline can be detected. Decline can be reversed.

Amidst the desolate landscape of fallen great companies, Jim Collins began to wonder: How do the mighty fall? Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course?

In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover. Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do.

But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover. Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. We are not imprisoned by our circumstances, our history, or even our staggering defeats along the way. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.

©2009 Jim Collins (P)2009 Jim Collins

Jim Collins Does It Again!!!

I thought this was an excellent book on leadership and business strategy. As a business owner myself for almost 25 years, I have seen how a company can find themselves in the various stages of decline if they are not careful.

Even our company went through some precarious times as we went through an “expansion mode and business model change” right at the beginning of the recession in the mid-2000’s.

That was a time when financing was easy and banks we almost “giving” money away to almost anyone who asked. I got caught holding the bag as the personal guarantor on the business loans and then started taking the pro-active steps to right “the ship”, downsize, cut overhead and get back to focusing on what we do well. Just in the nick of time!

Collins’s book points out some straight-forward approaches and steps that business owners and leader can/should be aware of and take in order to keep their businesses running well and profitable/successfully.

Great book for all!

Knowing your weak points can make you stronger.

Over and over Jim Collins puts out wonderful books. The research and time put into these books is unusual because the authors seem more concerned with meaningful books than sales of the book itself. Perhaps they see both as the same thing and the book worked. If you read each of Jim's books you will see he approaches the same subject from different angles and the insights are very valuable. How the Mighty Fall is another great perspective on durable effective business concepts.

Want your company to succeed? Read this book

If you are wondering why once-thriving companies have fallen from grace, or have gone into oblivion, in this book Jim Collins describes certain patterns of organizational and cultural behavior, coupled with leadership styles that serve as warning signs for those leaders that chose to pay attention so their companies and/or the divisions they lead avoid this fate.

Another great book by a great author.

Jim Collins does a great job explaining how the mighty can fall. This book is a good read for every business owner and manager because it illustrates what things to look for to avoid a fall in business. It is a true page-turner and there is never a dull moment during the read.

Excellent book

I really enjoyed this book. I think this book is the best one yet.

Good summary if anti-values

Anti-values are those values which hurt our self and others : ego, fear, judge&blame, anger frustration and impatience. Reject those anti-values in self and others and 42 mile march.

Jim Collins may be my new favorite author

I've now read three of his four books and I can listen to them over and over again. I just hope that audible will add his original book sooner rather than later

Jim Collins is excellent

Extremely insightful. This book was an easy listen and as my second Collins book I’m excited for my next one.

Excellent

Loved it. I really appreciate Jim's perspective on business success and failure. As a business owner, I always learn something.

Great insights from amazing research

This is kind of an add on to the massive research projects, and does help between books. I enjoy his passion about the topics, but it can feel like you're being yelled at at times.