Lessons from the worst CEOs of 2011

Netflix loses 60% of its market and RIM (Blackberry) also loses over 50% of its market, not a great year for what had been some of the strongest companies. They certainly never planned for such an impact at the start of 2011. What happened, well the customer spoke!

Both losses are included amongst the ‘worst CEOs of 2011’ listings. This presents some great insights to critical business failures this year. There are excellent lessons to be learnt from these failures. For more information follow this link.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/daily-ticker/worst-ceos-2011-netflix-reed-hastings-tops-tuck-161015122.html

The book ‘Why Smart Executives Fail’ by Sydney Finkelstein is a great follow up to this list and lays out what the fatal pitfalls are that many executives fall into. This is a great book to read prior to strategic planning for 2012.

http://www.whysmartexecutivesfail.com/

Some key issues that Finkelstein states as warning signs for organizations include:

• The company is too committed to the current plan to change
• The view is ‘we have our customers figured out’
• Top executives rarely interact with customers or front line employees
• The flow of information is carefully orchestrated so no one can go around official channels
• Critical information is often lost or cannot be ‘located’
• There is the feeling that ‘we can do what we want’ because of your market position
• Money is spent on issues that are not core to your business
• PR considerations are seen as equal to strategic considerations
• Seldom are mistakes discussed or learnt from
• ‘The way we have always done things’ is not criticized

Do any of these sound familiar to you?