Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters [Hardcover]

Jeffrey Sonnenfeld (Author), Andrew Ward (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...a well-timed new book...on how executives recover from career disasters." -- The Economist, February 15, 2007

"...an excellent book...essential for leaders and aspiring leaders in all walks of life." -- The Financial Times, January 17, 2007

"A sophisticated self-help guide for the fallen chief executive" -- BusinessWeek, February 12, 2007

"Firing Back is full of wreckage and hard-fought redemption, sparing little detail and never going gooey." -- FORBES, March 12, 2007

...Firing Back should be read by anyone who has success on their agenda. -- Donald Trump

...insight valuable for anyone who wants to reach the top and stay there. -- Jim Cramer, Journalist, Host of CNBC's "Mad Money"

A stunning achievement. One of the best books on leadership I've read in a very long time. -- Warren Bennis, University Professor, University of Southern California and author of On Becoming a Leader

An insightful, compelling work filled with real-life examples of triumphs, failures and recoveries. -- Jamie Dimon, CEO JPMorgan Chase

Given that the average tenure for a chief executive has been steadily declining, the timing of the book could not be better. And for anyone else who has ever been fired, it is nice to know that F. Scott Fitzgerald got it wrong. Apparently, there are second acts in American (business) lives. -- The New York Times, February 4, 2007

I wish I'd written this book myself and surely recommend all aspiring leaders read it. -- Roger Enrico, Former Chairman and CEO, Pepsico

From the Back Cover

Is it possible to rescue your career and restore your reputation after a major professional setback? In an age rife with press accounts of disgraced CEO’s, politicians, and celebrities-as well as courageous but beleaguered whistle-blowers and victims of rivalries or envious colleagues and bosses-this question has grown more important than ever.

In Firing Back, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward answer the question with a resounding “Yes”. They go on to lay out a practical and important five-step process for actually recovering from setbacks. Following these steps will help guise you through difficult circumstances, rebuild your reputation, and chart a new future. The authors also explore strategies for surmounting common barriers to career recovery, including tricky corporate cultures ad psychological stresses.

Anchored in decades of research and scholarly studies across multiple fields, this book is packed with engrossing stories and firsthand accounts from humbled but restored CEOs and executives from firms as diverse as General Electric, the Home Depot, Morgan Stanley, Apple, Staples, and Hewlett-Packard.

Firing Back offers a clear plan for anyone who needs to recover from a career setback and reclaim lost prestige and reputation-whether the setback stemmed from his own actions or forces outside her control.

Learn more about this book at www.firingbackbook.com

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 306 pages
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press; 1 edition (February 8, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1591393019
• ISBN-13: 978-1591393016
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #529,850 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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37 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tennyson was right: "To strive, to seek, to find...and not to yield.", January 22, 2007

By 

Robert Morris (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters (Hardcover)

As I began to read this book, I was reminded of Jack Dempsey's observation that "champions get up when they can't." All of us have encountered professional setbacks of one kind or another and some of them are especially difficult to overcome. Most of the examples which Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward cite in this book involve CEOs who either "fired back"and eventually prevailed after a career setback (e.g. Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, Bernie Marcus, Jimmy Carter, and George Foreman) or never fully recovered from them (e.g. Jill Barad, John Scully, Leona Helmsley, Jacques Nasser, and Linda Warnaco). The former demonstrate the importance of "seven lessons to turn tragedy into triumph" which Sonnenfeld and Ward recommend; the latter demonstrate the probable consequences of failing to understand and then apply those lessons on which a five-step strategy - "for rescuing and restoring a career and reputation after a devastating professional setback" -- is based.

It would be a disservice to Sonnenfeld and Ward as well as to those who read this brief commentary if I were to list the "lessons" and "steps" which are best revealed within the narrative of this remarkably thoughtful, eloquent, and practical book. Each is anchored in a real-world context. Each is relevant to anyone now embarked upon or preparing for a professional career. I mention this last point because some who consider purchasing this book may incorrectly assume that its material will be of greatest value only to senior-level executives. On the contrary, all of Sonnenfeld and Ward's observations and recommendations can be of substantial benefit to anyone who wishes to (a) avoid "a devastating professional setback" or (b) recover from one.

In essence, this book provides Sonnenfeld and Ward's response to this question: "How can I overcome a professional setback?" To their credit, at no time do they minimize or trivialize the impact of a professional setback. (Presumably each has experienced a few of his own.) They fully appreciate the difficulty of overcoming the debilitating psychological stress of failure, the challenges of failure to one's reputation (both personal and professional), social biases about failure, and other challenges which may be unique to one's company, its culture, and its industry. If not "tragic" or "devastating," a setback almost always lowers one's self-esteem, is embarrassing, and has adverse financial consequences. More often than not, there is collateral damage to one's family members and/or to one's close colleagues at work so guilt also comes into play.

Recall the Dempsey quotation provided earlier. Presumably Sonnenfeld and Ward agree with Dempsey on the importance of courage and also with me that it is much easier to summon the courage to "get up" when you are convinced that the situation is not hopeless, and, that you can indeed recover if you understand what has happened, why it has happened, and how you can - and should -- respond to it. Of course, it is preferable to avoid a setback in the first place. ("If `ifs' and `buts' were fruits and nuts....") Most of us are not so fortunate and I, for one, have learned the most important lessons from failures (mine and others') rather than from successes. Whether or not a given failure is our "fault," it is certainly our responsibility to take full advantage of the learning opportunity it offers, and then to make positive and productive use of whatever truth has been revealed.

It is interesting to examine the lives of "great leaders [who] rebound after career disasters" but, in my opinion, it is imperative to examine with rigor and candor one's own values, attitudes, and behavior - especially when struggling to understand and then recover from a professional setback which is invariably a personal setback, also. As Sonnenfeld and Ward make crystal clear, this journey of personal discovery is by no means easy. Nonetheless, it is one which must be initiated with commitment and then sustained by persistence throughout one's life. If and when setbacks occur - and they always do - the practical advice which Sonnenfeld and Ward offer in this book will enable those who absorb and digest it to understand and (yes) accept what has happened, understand why it has happened, and then leverage that wisdom effectively and productively, not only in their careers but in their personal lives.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Choice - Even in Defeat, February 15, 2007

By 

Rita W. Bartczak (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters (Hardcover)

While I'm not in the league of the leaders featured in 'Firing Back' it
has had a profound impact on how I dealt with a recent set back. I realize
now, that I have a choice - even in defeat. The advice is practical and
quickly changed how I viewed my situation. I now know I'm not alone and am
excited about my new path of 'Firing Back'.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A deep understaning of CEOs as humans, March 8, 2007

By 

Marshall Goldsmith - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters (Hardcover)

Unfortunately, much of the literature on CEOs depicts them as either Gods , demons or idiots. I have worked with many CEOs and have found them to be human beings - just like the rest of us. Jeff Sonnenfeld is one of the few authors who has actually interacted with hundreds of CEOs. This book depicts the 'human drama' of success and failure at the top of the executive world. It also has lessons about defeat, courage and perserverence that we can all use. Lots of books talk about what we can learn from success stories - few talk about what we can learn when we fail. From my experince, most of of learning comes from our losses - not our victories. We will all face adversity. We will all fail. 'Firing Back' gives us some great ideas about how to make a comeback when that happens.