| In Association With... |  |
|
|
|
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure | 
 enlarge | Author: Donald R. Keough
Creator: George Guidall
Publisher: Penguin Audio
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy New: $15.09
You Save: $10.86 (42%)
New (17) from $15.09
Avg. Customer Rating:  6 reviews
Sales Rank: 163349
Format: Audiobook
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 4
Pages: 4
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 6.1 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0143143867
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
EAN: 9780143143864
ASIN: 0143143867
Publication Date: July 24, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Absolutely Brand New & In Stock. 100% 30-Day Money Back. Direct from our warehouse. Ships by USPS. 1+ million customers served-In business since 1986. Happy Customers is Our #1 Goal. Toll Free Support
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 1 more reviews...
 Solid fundamentals August 24, 2008
After a bad loss, the Packers football team trudged into the locker room, expecting a chew out by Lombardi. He took a long time appearing and when he did, he walked in, held a football over his head and quietly said, 'Gentlemen, this is a football. Let's try and remember that next Sunday." He then walked out. Keough lays out the fundamentals which are so easy to forget: ask if a proposed course of action is the right thing to do, not the legal thing, since the next transition is to "can we get away with it?"; take time to think and reflect, and he quotes Goethe to good effect, "action is easy, thought is hard" ; do rely on your instincts and a few pieces of good information, and don't delegate your responsibility to decide to consultants and focus groups. The disaster of the New Coke is honestly explored. A key lesson? Your brand is in the mind of your customer or client; it is not what you want it to be or even think it is. Book is well written. Nice and short.
Worth the read, through the 9th commandment August 21, 2008
This is definitely a great book that everyone who is tempted to view their business as a success that just needs to keep doing what it is doing needs to read. Just listing the commandments themselves doesn't do the book justice, because the author really gives a depth to each that expands beyond what you would get from the name. The book is also a quick read without any pretentious prose to get in the way. The author comes across as human, and is very open about his own mistakes and is very willing to learn from them.
Where the book falls flat is the last two commandments, where the examples description and point stop being about business, but rather about life. The 10th commandment deals with fearing the future. That might imply not fearing a changing marketplace for your business, but really that is mostly covered in the first commandment (stop taking risks) and here he focuses on things like overpopulation and recession. And all his point amounts to is that past doomsayers were wrong, so don't worry about them now. Besides the rather flat point (even though I agree with it in general - many Domesday predictions are overstated) what it does is accentuate a flaw in the first commandment - it tells you take the necessary risks, but really focuses no time on risk mitigation. You can finish the book thinking that bad things only happen when you don't take risks or get paralyzed by a fear of the future. Bad things can also happen when you take a good, solid risk and fail. You can end up worse off. Admittedly businesses with big budgets like the ones the author focuses on generally aren't betting the farm, rather a profitability percentage and can weather the failure of the risk rather than the failure to take the risk, but that is highly selective sample.
Still in all very worth the read and chock-full of great advice and insight. If you are in a decision making position in a business that has success and needs to know what to do with it, you will not find a better ROI for your money than buying this book.
A Book on What to *Avoid* Doing in Business August 16, 2008
"The Ten Commandments for Business Failure" turns the typical "business success" book on its head...Donald Keough covers actions that will lead to *failure*...not success. With a Foreward written by Warren Buffett, dustjacket testimonials from Bill Gates and Jack Welch, among others, this book attracted my attention.
I found Keough's perspective interesting...he may not have all the answers in terms of how to ensure success in business, but he does have some advice on to how to ensure failure. Such advice is useful, but not comprehensive. To his credit, Keough cedes this point and provides context as to what his book will and will *not* provide to readers.
The stories and anecdotes that pepper this book kept me reading through to the end. While not as engaging a storyteller as Warren Buffett, the author has a humble and readable voice that comes through in this book.
I recommend this book primarily for the stories embedded in the "Commandments." While I find it easier to explain how *not* to do something...as opposed to how one *should* do something...there are many interesting and insightful lessons in this book.
A book of simple truths. August 13, 2008
3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Donald R. Keough has written a book that is filled with so many truths that it is stunning in its simplicity. The Ten Commandments for Business Failure is a must read for anyone who reads the Wall Street Journal daily. It should be required reading for every business major in every university in the United States. I'm simply astounded that this book hasn't received wider acclaim.
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure essentially contains 11 rules or observations that can, singly, or in any combination, doom a business to failure. And who would know better than Donald R. Keough, the man that made, perhaps the most famous business mistake of all time by taking Coco Cola off the market and replacing it with "new Coke"? When I made my living by teaching marketing in a college, "new Coke" was the example I used to prove that even successful companies sometime goof. That example, along with pizza flavored ketchup served to show students that no one is infallible (one of Keough's commandments).
While providing 11 commandments rather than 10 Keough provides the reader with observations and insights gathered over a life time of working and making decisions. My favorite three are: "Be Afraid of the Future", "Lose Passion for Work and Life", and perhaps the most important "Put Faith in Consultants." He gives another piece of advice with the reader would be well served to follow: Hang around people better than you.
The Ten Commandments for Business Failure, along with Marketing Mistakes & Successes by Robert F. Hartley should make up a private library of anyone working or managing in business today. Those along with The Adventures of a Bystander by Peter F. Drucker will serve the owner well if read and heeded.
I highly recommend The Ten Commandments for Business Failure.
 Another manager's perspective, but entertaining angle August 13, 2008
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
Anyone reading Donald Keough's book would do well to first review books like How to Measure Anything: Finding the Value of "Intangibles" in Business and The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers just to keep things in perspective. Both of these authors explain why would should temper "expert opinion" even when it's presented as entertainingly as in Keough's book.
As someone who has been reading case studies and "the world as I see it" books by top executives for years, I find that many of the examples Keough lists are very familiar. Of course, the New Coke example has been around since I was in business school but, since he was there, Keough gets a special "insider's" pass and does provide some useful new insight. The other cases are also a little worn, but I don't think I've every been this entertained reading those cases.
The Ten Commandments themselves are also individually familiar. Does an exhortation to keep one's passion and to remember to take risks really ring that profound? No, but, come to think of it, I haven't found them all in one place nor do I think I found them as engaging as you will find in this book.
Keough will also get extra credit for a convincing appeal to authority. Authors which much more mediocre careers have written books with similar observations but Keough comes off as knowing what he is talking about - and still manages some self-deprecating humor.
This was a quick and delightful read and I found myself laughing out loud, pointing out paragraphs in the book to my friends, and email quotes from the book. I plan to anonymously deliver this book to a couple of people who need it most (they may not get the joke, but I will).
|
|
|
Powered by Associate-O-Matic
| |
