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Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

forbes.com

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Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#11

Post by jfaucett »

brianchu wrote: post #9
jfaucett wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"This article reads like one long speculation presented as fact." Though this might be true about the article itself as posted, this is not a bit of bad journalism. The author Sydney Finkelstein, is a Professor of Management and spent 6 years studying 50 companies and conducting some 200 interviews, here's a link to the journal article : http://www.jacksonleadership.com/pdfs/7Habits_IveyBusinessJo... So to answer you…

Just because a sample consists of 50 companies and 200 interviews hardly makes that a sound sample, given no information about how those companies were selected, and given no attempt to compare those companies to successful companies. For example, 5/7 of these traits easily describe Steve Jobs. Furthermore, just because someone is an academic authority hardly makes them less liable to fall for the cognitive biases th…

I suppose I should have been more verbose above. Basically, I don't want to say that davidkatz's and yours notes about the possible errors and biases of the study are unfounded. IMO, every study or report should be approached with these precautions in mind, if simply because all data has to be interpretted at some point which makes it subjective. But the main point I was trying to get across is that a study of this size conducted by someone of academic authority should not be simply waved off as a piece of bull b/c of possible errors, which was the impression that davidkatz's post made on me.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#12

Post by patmcguire »

davidkatz wrote: post #5

Seriously? How many more decades are we going to see people mistake correlation for causation as if this problem had not been thoroughly understood? This article reads like one long speculation presented as fact. Kahneman and other psychologists have long established that we color character traits into stories that fit the result. If a CEO is pursuing his beliefs strongly and the company succeeds, we call him a visio…

This is a contributor article. Forbes is pretty lax in terms of who they'll let write for them as a contributor - it's more like getting an article in HuffPo than in NYTimes.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#13

Post by gilgoomesh »

aik wrote: post #4

Very interesting. Though aren't several of these also "habits" that Steve Jobs had? E.g. Habit #5: They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image

Yes, Jobs had all of these qualities to varying degrees.

The list is bullshit. It doesn't make a bad CEO, it makes an aggressive, ambitious CEO.

I would say that all of these traits are good to have in a CEO. Provided you have a CFO or COO who keeps his eyes on the numbers, keeps the company solvent and keeps the CEO in the realm of sanity.

Jobs had Tim Cook and his predecessors Fred Anderson and Peter Oppenheimer who managed to keep 30 billion cash in the bank even when Apple were at their lowest ebb and turn an operating profit in all but 4 quarters.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#14

Post by nostrademons »

ncallaway wrote: post #3

I haven't read the book that he linked to, but in the blog post or the journal article I didn't see any true exploration of causation vs. correlation. What if these are 7 habits that make people likely to become CEOs? It would follow, then, that CEOs that failed would also exhibit these habits. I'd like to see the article provide some evidence that these are habits specific to "spectacularly unsuccessful" CEOs as opp…

This may be the factor behind the success of Shark Tank. By backing CEOs who are gill-endowed, they remove air from the equation. OTOH, it does open them up to accusations of fishiness behind the scenes.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#16

Post by rednukleus »

eduardordm wrote: post #2

I might be wrong, but I think the title should be 'The Seven Habits of Steve Ballmer'

My first thought was Steve Jobs, but I guess this could apply to a lot of tech CEOs both successful and unsuccessful. Or to put it another way - the article is complete nonsense.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#17

Post by gizmo686 »

davidkatz wrote: post #5

Seriously? How many more decades are we going to see people mistake correlation for causation as if this problem had not been thoroughly understood? This article reads like one long speculation presented as fact. Kahneman and other psychologists have long established that we color character traits into stories that fit the result. If a CEO is pursuing his beliefs strongly and the company succeeds, we call him a visio…

I think the issue is journalism vs scientific reasearch. In journalism, you do not have the luxury of spending huge quantities of time developing your methadology and validating your statistics; and it is understood that journalism is much more by-the-gut than science. One of the major jobs of journalism is to help your reader draw connections and get context for current issues. As long as readers get a diversity of sources, and views are expressed in rough proportion to how they are help by people in the field, then I think journalism is doing its job.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#18

Post by prostoalex »

All corporate biographies are written by people who know the end of the story and now have to retrofit some facts and omit the others to backfill the story so that it seems like a straight line leading to success/failure.

I present to you a set of quick templates for writing business advice where you know how the story turned out.

-----------------

CEO failed: They see themselves and their companies as dominating their environment.

CEO succeeded: They expressed confidence in their leadership and weren't afraid to explore riskier opportunities.

-----------------

CEO failed: They identify so completely with the company that there is no clear boundary between their personal interests and their corporation’s interests.

CEO succeeded: Laser focus is what differentiates them from other [loser] CEOs. Ability to identify major problems and relentless pursue them instilled energy in top management team and eventually led to success.

-----------------

CEO failed: They think they have all the answers.

CEO succeeded: Successful CEOs have to be quick at their decisions. Sometimes the underlings will deliberate too much, as rarely there are obvious strategies, and some elements of risk are involved in pursuing any new opportunity. A CEO is someone who's able to cut to the core of the issue and make a decision, so even when failure happens, it happens faster and lessons are learned.

-----------------

CEO failed: They ruthlessly eliminate anyone who isn’t completely behind them.

CEO succeeded: There's no "i" in the "team". Avoid detractors and those who try to play politics. Focus on execution, remove all obstacles to flawless implementation.

-----------------

CEO failed: They are consummate spokespersons, obsessed with the company image.

CEO succeeded: Not afraid to stand up and be the face of the company. This builds trust in customers, even when the reason for standing up is to apologize for a mis-step.

-----------------

CEO failed: They underestimate obstacles.

CEO succeeded: Focus on the end goal. A lot of people will try to scare you from expanding into new markets, and you know there will always be problems. It's how you deal with those problems that makes or breaks the company.

-----------------

CEO failed: They stubbornly rely on what worked for them in the past.

CEO succeeded: Stick to your gut feeling. If the business model does not seem viable, there will be plenty of distractions telling you that "this time it's different". Recognize core issues when you see them.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#19

Post by jasonlotito »

prostoalex wrote: post #18

All corporate biographies are written by people who know the end of the story and now have to retrofit some facts and omit the others to backfill the story so that it seems like a straight line leading to success/failure. I present to you a set of quick templates for writing business advice where you know how the story turned out. ----------------- CEO failed: They see themselves and their companies as dominating the…

While it might be funny, I've never seen anything like this come from any of the books I've read. In fact, some of your "succeeded" advice is mentioned as "wrong" precisely for the reasons they can fail. In fact:

> retrofit some facts and omit the others to backfill the story so that it seems like a straight line leading to success/failure.

None of the good ones remotely do this. They mention the failures right along with the successes, and it's rarely a book about "their" success.

Nothing you've read, if you read anything, is of merit, not because of the subject matter, but rather, your poor choices.

Re: Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives

#20

Post by diego »

prostoalex wrote: post #18

All corporate biographies are written by people who know the end of the story and now have to retrofit some facts and omit the others to backfill the story so that it seems like a straight line leading to success/failure. I present to you a set of quick templates for writing business advice where you know how the story turned out. ----------------- CEO failed: They see themselves and their companies as dominating the…

I said basically the same thing in a blog post when this article came out almost a year ago.

http://diegobasch.com/the-seven-habits-of-awesome-dolphins

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