Free Chapters of “Billion-Dollar Lessons”
Our publisher, Portfolio, has graciously made three chapters of Billion-Dollar Lessons available for free downloading. Just click on the highlighted chapter names below.
| Introduction: Can Fatal Strategic Flaws Only Be Recognized in Hindsight? | 1 | |||
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PART ONE: Failure Patterns
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| 1. | Illusions of Synergy: Succumbing to the Eighth Deadly Syn(ergy) | 15 | ||
| 2. | Faulty Financial Engineering: Taking a Shortcut Through the Numbers | 37 | ||
| 3. | Deflated Rollups: Buying a String of Rock Bands to Form an Orchestra | 60 | ||
| 4. | Staying the (Misguided) Course: Threat? What Threat? | 86 | ||
| 5. | Misjudged Adjacencies: The Grass Isn’t Always Greener | 116 | ||
| 6. | Fumbling Technology: Riding the Wrong Technology | 141 | ||
| 7. | Consolidation Blues: Doubling Down on a Bad Hand | 169 | ||
| Coda | 190 | |||
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PART TWO: Avoiding the Same Mistakes
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| 8. | Why Bad Strategies Happen to Good People: Awareness Is Not Enough | 197 | ||
| 9. | Why Bad Strategies Happen to Good Companies: Awareness Is Still Not Enough | 216 | ||
| 10. | The Devil’s Advocate: Unleashing the Power of Conflict and Deliberation | 231 | ||
| 11. | The Safety Net: An Independent Devil’s Advocate Review | 258 | ||
| Epilogue: Two Revolutions | 273 | |||
| Acknowledgments | 275 | |||
| Research Notes | 277 | |||
| Notes | 292 | |||
| Recommended Reading | 299 | |||
| Index | 303 |
