If You Take Away Religion, You Can't

One Reason There Are So Many Short-lived Management Fads Is That Their Prescriptions Were Derived And Advocated In Precisely This Way. So Managers Read About A Fad And Try It, Find That It Doesn't Work, Abandon The Effort, And Move On To The Next Thing. In Reality, It Is Usually The Case That The Faddish Prescription Was Indeed Sound Advice In Certain Circumstances, But Actually Was Poor Advice In Other Circumstances.

Don't Worry About The Level Of Individual Prominence You Have Achieved; Worry About The Individuals You Have Helped Become Better People.

The Biggest Mistake Is An Over-reliance On Data. Managers Will Say If There Are No Data They Can Take No Action. However, Data Only Exist About The Past. By The Time Data Become Conclusive, It Is Too Late To Take Actions Based On Those Conclusions.

To Prop Up The Stock Price, Managers Have To Turn Down The Screws On Everybody. That Forces Them To Cancel All The Projects That Would Lead To Future Growth In Order To Drop Money To The Bottom Line. This Is Hp's Dilemma Today. Once A Company's Growth Has Stopped, The Game As We Have Known It Is Over. It's A Scary Thing.

History Is Littered With Great Firms That Got Killed By Disruption. Of Course, The Personal Computer, A Technology That First Took Root As A Toy, Got Digital Equipment Corporation. Kodak Missed The Boat For A Long Time On Digital Imaging. Sony Was Slow To Get Mp3 Technology. Microsoft Doesn't Know What To Do With Open Source Software. And So On.