Product Description: Don Keough—a former top executive at Coca-Cola and now chairman of the elite investment banking firm Allen & Company—has witnessed plenty of failures in his sixty-year career (including New Coke). He has also been friends with some of the most successful people in business history, including Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Jack Welch, Rupert Murdoch, and Peter Drucker.
Now this elder statesman reveals how great enterprises get into trouble. Even the smartest executives can fall into the trap of believing in their own infallibility. When that happens, more bad decisions are sure to follow.
This light-hearted “how-not-to” book includes anecdotes from Keough’s long career as well as other infamous failures. His commandments for failure include: Quit Taking Risks; Be Inflexible; Assume Infallibility; Put All Your Faith in Experts; Send Mixed Messages; and Be Afraid of the Future.
As he writes, “After a lifetime in business I’ve never been able to develop a step-by-step formula that will guarantee success. What I could do, however, was talk about how to lose. I guarantee that anyone who follows my formula will be a highly successful loser.”
Don't Follow the Commandments, But Read the Book "The Ten Commandments for Business Failure" by Donald R Keogh is well written, thought provoking, and a good book for anyone who wants to run a successful business, department within a business, or just succeed in their career. Certainly real estate investors will benefit from Mr. Keogh's Ten Commandments. They are: 1. Quit taking risks 2. Be inflexible 3. Isolate yourself 4. Assume infallibility 5. Play the game close to the foul line 6. Don't take time to think 7. Put all your faith in experts and outside consultants 8. Love your bureaucracy 9. Send mixed messages 10.Be afraid of the future 11. (Bonus!) Lose your passion for work- for life
Each chapter is self-contained and a quick read. The style is first-person narrative and very accessible. The are good quotes and examples in each chapter- they stand on their own and collectively make for a good book.
The book is full of reminders- things that you will already know and will be glad to review. What the book does not provide is detailed "how to" remedy the sure step to failure- but their are a lot of detailed books or texts to fix the things that you identify as a challenge in your organization or in your life.
Enjoy this book for what it is: A quick, feel good book that will remind you of bad business practices to avoid and in turn good business practices to put in place.
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Make sure you don't follow the commandments "While no company can ever embrace all of the world and all of mankind, Coca-Cola comes about as close as any."
"The Ten Commandment for Business Failure" by Donald R. Keough, a former president of the Coca-Cola company, is a small book that, if you follow the instructions, will guide you to be a very successful loser. If you do not want to be one, this book is a must read and take those lessons as a cautionary tale.
Coca-Cola is one of the most recognisable brands on the planet but it was still vulnerable to failures. In this book, Keough tells you stories of Coca-Cola, among other companies, on how it became successful and how it failed at times. When you read the words "failure" and "Coca-Cola", I bet the word "New Coke" sprang to your mind. Despite all the stories from any business book or textbook, in this book, you will have a chance to know it from the former president of Coca-Cola himself.
Contents
Commandment One: Quit Taking Risks "It's reasonable to think that because when you achieve something, even very little, there is the great temptation to quit taking risks." Apart from telling you the reason that quit taking risk is a sure way to failure, Keough wrote briefly about Xerox and how they quited taking risk.
Commandment Two: Be Inflexible Keough started this chapter with a story of Coca-Cola bottlers in 1940s-1950s and how they almost brought the company down because of the inflexible practice. This chapter also has the examples of IBM and Ford. All in all, "when the conditions around you change, remain inflexible. Keep on keeping on. Stand firm, You will fail.'
Commandment Three: Isolate Yourself This chapter targets at those who get yourself a great big office in some remote corner of the most remote executive floor and the shut the door. And also put out a sign: "Don't make the boss mad. Bring me no bad news."
Commandment Four: Assume Infallibility "If something seems to be heading in the wrong direction, cover up, better yet, wait until you have a full-blown crisis, then blame it on some external force - or blame it on somebody else." Keough wrote about a brief ignorance of Coca-Cola that damaged the reputation dearly in Belgium. There was also a story of Coca-Cola in Germany that Keough admitted he was wrong because he somewhat assumed infallibility.
Commandment Five: Play the Game Close to the Foul Line He wrote about the problem with the Wall Street that made CFO the rock stars of business instead of being the guardians of the transparency and the fiscal integrity of the corporations. "There is no such thing as business ethics. Just ethics. It's not separated from the rest of your life."
Commandment Six: Don't Take Time to Think Keough wrote that we are in the generation that is obsessed with technology. People said we are in the `information age' but he disputed that we are in the `data age' with all the ICT (Information and Communication Technology). We need to think and Keough tells you the vice of not thinking.
Commandement Seven: Put All Your Faith in Experts and Outside Consultants This chapter has the popular case study, New Coke, not on how it failed but how it was caused. There is also a nice anecdote on Coca-Cola wine business.
Commandment Eight: Love Your Bureaucracy "The bureaucrats who control these (bureaucratic) rituals guard them with their lives because any change undermines their own power or authority." He also mentioned that bureaucracy in one of the main reasons talented individuals left the company. There are some short stories of Coca-Cola, Dell, NASA, etc regarding love of bureaucracy.
Commandment Nine: Send Mixed Message "It doesn't matter what you do, you'll be rewarded." is an example of a mixed message that Keough wrote about. Mixed messages create confusion. He wrote about Columbia and how Coca-Cola purchasing it sent a mixed message to everyone.
Commandment Ten: Be Afraid of the Future The pessimists will not push anything forward be it corporations or a society. This chapter, Keough hit on the faces of those with pessimism.
Commandment Eleven: Lose Your Passion for Work - for Life This is the bonus chapter and Keough wrote on how it is the most important one.
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Next, I'll compare this book to an ideal business book or a book that is easy to understand, distinct, practical, reliable, insightful, and provides great reading experience.
Ease of Understanding: 9/10: It is a little book written in a plain language and all the commandments were beautifully in sync. You do not have to fret with statistical data or figures, everything is easy to learn and absorb.
Distinction: 4/10: The major difference between this book and others is that it is written by Donald Keough. All the commandments and stories in this book are not new, just from an opposite perspective.
Practicality: 8/10: It is somewhat confusing to define `practicality' of this book. Following the book will definitely lead you to failure and this book is written in a sarcastic tone. Thus, do the opposite and use the commandments in this book as a caution.
Reliability: 9/10: It is very hard to dispute his commandments. Look at the ten (eleven) commandments and try to tell which one will not lead to business failure. I can't, and I don't think anybody can. Although his experience alone is great enough, Keough put together different and interesting (albeit indifferent) stories of other companies and industries.
Insight: 5/10: This book is small and the stories are short. I wish stories, especially Coca-Cola ones, are longer with more insight and details. However, another thing I love about this book is quotations from various people. They are not numerous but I like every single one.
Reading Experience: 9/10: You will finish the book in no time. It is a pleasure to read. The tone of the book is sarcastic, casual, and joyful. I have never and will never have a chance to talk to Donald Keough but from the experience I have from reading the book, I come to think that the foreword by Warren Buffet might be true that "Don talks such sense and offers such inspiration. Don can tell you to go to hell so wonderfully you'll enjoy the journey."
Overall: 7.3/10: Get this book and you will like it. There are some flaws because it is very short but I truly believe that you can find much use of it. Hang this book it front of you office to remind you what you must not do in your business and you will shut the door to failure. By the way, I rarely pay attention to the praises and foreword but this book probably has one of the best compilations; Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jack Welch, and Rupert Murdoch... well... and George W. Bush!
sound advice, but I won't follow it I was at the library the other day looking for books about how to start a business and consulting and stuff like that, and my wife found this book:
"The Ten Commandments for Business Failure" by Donald Keough.
I thought I might as well figure out how to do it right, so I added the book to the stack.
Don was the president of Coca-Cola in the 1980s and is probably most famous for heading the company while Coke was losing the cola wars to Pepsi, and especially for the New Coke debacle (that some say was a just brilliant marketing ploy.) The reintroduction of Coke Classic was probably the tipping point of the reversal, to where Coca-Cola once again enjoys a dominant position worldwide in the fizzy, sweet, caffeinated beverage business.
It was an interesting read, though the author didn't dwell too much on New Coke, he does mention it, and accept at least partial blame. The moral of that particular story is "Don't listen to consultants" -- or rather "Listen to consultants if you want to fail." Good advice, for my clients that is.
The whole book is written with that somewhat gimmicky formula: "Do X if you want to fail", meaning "don't do X if you want to succeed."
It isn't specifically about his leadership at Coca-Cola, but rather general business advice. The most profound point is probably in the introduction where he says he doesn't have the formula for success but that he does know 10 rules (actually 11, there's a bonus chapter) that are almost guaranteed to help you fail.
I don't want to give away the rest of the commandments, because it might hurt book sales, and the 10 (11) commandments are really just pithy, common sense advice, but worth reiterating. The book is actually quite an enjoyable read, moreso for the interesting, optimistic tone of a successful man who may have made mistakes, but was definitely not a failure.
I thought he was surprisingly "with it" and his advice relevant to the times and up with technology and the current business climate. I particularly enjoyed his chapter on pessimism and how he skewered the Global Warming doomsayers without mentioning it or them by name (except for Paul R. Ehrlich, one of the leaders of the global warming movement who as recently as 20 years ago was preaching the impending new ice age.)
Despite a few "Norman Einstein" moments (such as claiming India acquired Nukes in the 1970s) and a slight tone of the born privileged, I enjoyed the book and appreciated the advice. I found myself liking and wishing to meet Don Keough long before the end of the book, and not changing that opinion by the time I was done.
Unfortunately, though, I plan on ignoring the 10 commandments, and finding a way to fail on my own merits.
An anatomy of failure Every so often a wise and experienced writer condenses his knowledge and experience down and makes it all look so simple. Actually it is, and I suspect that Donald Keough is one of those people who can look at a messy situation, and quickly pick out exactly what matters. I suspect he's got better at this with experience, hence this book appearing now.
This book allows us to learn loads from another person's experience, including his mistakes such as New Coke. It's written simply and clearly with each point demonstrated by either good examples or dire warnings. The story about the senior IBM executives talking about "listening to customers" in a video, whilst having a can of Pepsi in the video they were showing to one of their biggest customers (The President of Coca-Cola)sticks in my memory. (page 149)
Overall this is an excellent book. All business leaders will learn something from it.
It would also work well as a personal manual for how to fail in life as an individual.
This book is excellent and I can recommend it confidently both to business and personal readers.
Uplifting in this trying time. The author used this book to partly write his autobiography, albeit, a condensed version, but he also set out to define what it means to be successful by outlining how to fail. It was interesting in the sense that it made you smile a bit, while realizing that some of the things the author is telling you not to do if you want to fail, or vice versa, you actually do throughout a portion of your life. Definitely not a textbook on success, but more a book to read while at the beach, pondering your past, present and future, and relating it to ways to better oneself with the author's advice. I would recommend it as a beginner's guide to business and career, usable as a stepping-stone to bigger and better texts on the subject.
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