‘How they blew it’ by Jamie Oliver and Tony Goodwin, published by Kogan Page

Though the two books reviewed this month have a common theme of failure, they are in other ways many miles apart. This first one, written jointly by a UK journalist and an entrepreneur, is an easy read with some interesting stories but does not go into the depth that a serious business reader would hope for.

Each chapter examines a case study of a particular entrepreneur who fell from grace and the choices do not seem to follow any specific pattern; at one extreme there is Kenneth Lay, Chairman of Enron and the other a small time player called Christopher Foster, whose main claim to fame was the tragedy of his suicide after murdering his wife and daughter. Yet each of these characters is dealt with in chapters of about ten pages, which leads to much superficiality. One suspects that the choice was motivated by the easy availability of press cuttings and published material rather than any consistent theme.

This is not to say that the stories are not interesting and I discovered some characters that I had not come across before and learnt more about others where my knowledge was sketchy. But it is only in the last chapter on ‘conclusions’ that there is anything to make you think more deeply about the topic of business failure. Though the conclusions are not always justified by reference to the stories, there are some interesting suggestions of common characteristics of those who rise and fall, the most convincing of which were:

• They are big picture types who are bored with detail and cannot wait to get on to the next deal
• They are much less intelligent than they think they are and than other people think they are, because they can talk a good game
• They often succeed because of good fortune but put it down to their own abilities
• They are sucked into competing with other entrepreneurs who have achieved even more success
• The focus becomes their own social status rather than their customers and they fail to adapt to new market trends

After reading these conclusions, I felt that I could have skipped the stories and just read that last chapter; but then I would have missed the anecdotes and the sensational titbits. Perhaps it is a well balanced book after all; the stories are a good holiday read purely for entertainment and the final chapter is where the learning takes place.

http://www.koganpage.com/products/how-they-blew-it/BusinessandManagement/B/Leadership/B010/1003693/9780749460655/