Review of "How They Blew It..."

Recently I was offered a copy of  "How They Blew It: The CEOs and Entrepreneurs Behind Some of the World's Most Catastrophic Business Failures" by Jamie Oliver and Tony Goodwin.  David Palmer of Vacancy Clearing offered to review it and here is his review:

When I was given the opportunity to review this book I was filled with negative preconceptions. Pre-Christmas marketing! Shallow research! Tony Goodwin? Why was Tony Goodwin involved? I was going to write a withering review that would banish it to the farthest reaches of book space. Well I couldn’t have been more wrong! I read the book in a couple of sittings and found it a fascinating introduction to a subject I will now explore further.

The book covers the lives of 16 well-known entrepreneurs from their initial success and spectacular rise on the world stage to their inevitable downfall. Some died prematurely, some committed suicide, some languish in prison but all suffered the same ignominy and fate - failure.

The book is just over 200 pages and each subject gets the same 10-12 pages of attention. So it’s easy to skip through the chapters based on the same theme but each individual case is different and intriguing.

What interests me most is the portrayal of our human competitive instincts. Each of us has the instinct to survive, to provide for ourselves and to defend what we have created but in a few rare cases these instincts are honed so sharply that the individual wants to go on further than survival, comfort or even success.

I got the distinct impression that those that fit this profile are not necessarily the cleverest or even the most determined but are the ones that are not content with the ordinary and crave the drug of super-success and all that comes with it. Like any drug this can lead to self-delusion and cravings and those that want it will do anything to get it.

My particular favourite is the chapter about Mark Goldberg. Mark built MSB into a hugely successful recruitment business in Bromley, Kent, which is where I live. Mark by all accounts is a great salesman and built his recruitment firm during the boom IT recruitment years. He was then worth £40m. He then went on to spend the whole lot on a misguided and failed attempt to take Crystal Palace into the Premiership. Hindsight is a wonderful thing but even at the time most people thought he was mad.

Maybe he was mad; after all, these entrepreneurs were seen by ordinary mortals as super humans: extraordinarily powerful and wealthy but perhaps at the same time disconnected from the normal world inhabited by the rest of us. Mad too because their businesses became casinos reaching higher and higher to deliver success and keep in the game. Addictive and toxic!

Ultimately they all took one gamble too many. It does leave a question hanging which asks: if these are the ones that have obviously failed and we know about them, what about all those that are exhibiting the same characteristics who have yet to crash?

This is a book to buy any budding entrepreneur for Christmas. It is well researched and I can now completely understand why Tony Goodwin, the entrepreneur, has such a fascination with this “car-crash” subject.

If you want to review a recruitment book, DVD or a conference drop me a note and I'll see what I can sort out!

NOTE:
We have 10 copies of the book to give away.  All you need to do is email me the answer to this question, in 50 words or less; What business mistake did you learn most from in your career? Please email me by end of play on Wednesday 15th December. We'll pick winners at random and publish the answers you've given on our blog in the next few weeks. 

Comments

[ITStrategyLisa]

Great article and lead me to buy it for hubby's xmas pressie - thanks David

[SeanMaher7]

Sounds like a good read. Have just ordered as a christmas present for myself!! Thanks for the review.