Customer Reviews

Seduced by Success: How the Best Companies Survive the 9 Traps of Winning

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To me, one of the most interesting paradigm shifts involves a paradox: at a time when change is the only constant, precisely the same elements which result in a given company's success can often be the causes of its subsequent decline. That seems to be the core concept in this book in which Robert J. Herbold explains "how the best companies survive the 9 traps of winning." Conversely, many other of the best companies (however "best" may be defined) do not. The traps that Herbold identifies and examines are among the usual suspects whenever a company goes (invoking Jim Collins' terms) "from great to good" or "from good to mediocre":

1. Sticking with yesterday's business model
2. Allowing your products [or services] to become outdated
3. Clinging to your once-successful branding after it becomes stale and dull
4. Ignoring your business processes as they become cumbersome ands complicated
5. Rationalizing your loss of speed and agility
6. Condoning poor performance and letting your star employees languish
7. Getting lulled into a culture of comfort, casualness, and confidence
8. Not confronting turf wars, infighting, and obstructionists
9. Unwittingly providing schizophrenic communications

Of course, falling into and then remaining in any one of these "traps" can have serious, perhaps even fatal consequences. Moreover, failing companies are usually caught in several (if not most) of the nine. Finally, even if a given company escapes from one or more of them, there is no guarantee that it will not falling into one or more later. Hence a variation on the aforementioned paradox: Precisely the same elements which enable a given company to survive or to go "from mediocre to good" can often be the causes of its decline again.

Although all of the companies that Herbold discusses are major corporations (e.g. General Motors, Toyota, IBM, Sony, Wal-Mart and Microsoft), all organizations (including non-profits) can fall into one or more of the nine traps. Brilliantly, Herbold explains how to survive them or avoid them by understanding how others have survived them. To his credit, Herbold spends far less time on the "what" than he does on the "how" and "why" of doing so. Each of his key insights is anchored within a real-world context. For example:

How Toyota avoided "legacy" thinking and behavior
How IBM "tackles its vulnerabilities"
How Wal-Mart uses reapplication effectively
How Microsoft makes "well-analyzed big bets"
How Procter & Gamble stays relevant
How at Hewlett-Packard, "the key to speed and agility is leadership"

It remains for each reader to absorb and digest the material in this book, conduct a rigorous and thorough evaluation of her is his company's major vulnerabilities, select strategies and tactics from among those Herbold recommends, and then with appropriate modification, apply them to the specific needs of the given company.

In Chapter 29, Herbold concludes his narrative by examining the Apple culture within which "resting on your laurels is never an option!" Over the years, Apple has faced the same challenge which other highly successful companies have: How to prevent success from breeding a culture of lack of urgency, satisfaction, excessive pride, a and a protective attitude toward the way things have been done in the past. This is precisely what James O'Toole has in mind when referring to "the ideology of comfort and the tyranny of custom." Herbold offers two guidelines when challenging the status quo: When you are a winner, be as aggressive as you were when you were lagging behind. Also, develop a culture that constantly questions all practices at all times. To sum up, there can be no continuous improvement, much less continuous and sustainable success, without relentless skepticism.

To present his list of the nine traps of success, former Microsoft executive Herbold uses a series of mini case studies to demonstrate the failures (which might all be summarized as leadership complacency) and to support his recommendations for correcting, which are summarized in the final chapter as the maintenance of a questioning attitude. The result is a book that is easy to review, but one which may leave the reader questioning its applicability.

Giving points for simplicity of structure, this book gets high marks. The seven, plus two, deadly sins are each the subject of nine separate sections, bookended by an opening discussion on the seduction of success, and the key to seduction avoidance in the last chapter. The nine traps are simple statements of failure to stay vigilant in pursuit of excellence:
1. Neglect: Sticking with yesterday's business model
2. Pride: Allowing your products to become outdated
3. Boredom: Clinging to your once-successful branding after it becomes stale and dull
4. Complexity: ignoring your business processes as they become cumbersome and complicated
5. Bloat: Rationalizing your loss of sped and agility
6. Mediocrity: Condoning poor performance and letting your star employees languish
7. Lethargy: Getting lulled into a culture of comfort, casualness, and confidence
8. Timidity: Not confronting turf wars, infighting, and obstructionists
9. Confusion: Unwittingly providing schizophrenic communications

However, simplicity is a double-edged sword, and overly generalized solutions are seldom useful. On a comparative basis, I preferred James Kilts' book, "Doing What Matters", both as a read and as an instructive manuscript.

Dennis DeWilde, author of
"The Performance Connection"

This is a very well researched and insightful book. I highly recommend it.

The author, who was Microsoft's COO for 7 years in the mid-late 1990's, analyzes 44 different companies, digging into whether they were able to sustain success. The reader learns why companies like Kodak, Sony, GM, and many others have had so much trouble remaining successful, while companies liked Toyota, Starbucks, P&G, and Fidelity Investments have been capable of sustaining their success. The author also reviews some companies, like Porsche, Harley Davidson, Apple, and Harrah's, that were successful, fell into some of the traps that success generates, and then fixed their problems and recovered. These rich and detailed examples are really fun to read, because there are tons of quotes from the business press on what was going on in these companies.

The basis of this book is a powerful and very important observation by the author: "Success is a huge business vulnerability. It can destroy and organization's or an individual's ability to understand the need for change and can also destroy the motivation to creatively attack the status quo."

He then goes on to explain the three human behaviors that cause this to happen and the nine business traps these behaviors generate. For each of the traps, several examples of specific companies are analyzed, and key lessons are emphasized.

Reading this book is like taking a terrific leadership and management course. It is powerful.

It's refreshing to read about the pitfalls of success and how to avoid falling prey to greatness. So many wonderful examples of successful companies and their ability to conquer the complacent habits of failure. Also many examples of companies that did not transition quick enough and are left behind now. Most of examples are from the 80's until recent times and they are very relevant. The author has worked for Microsoft and you wonder if MSFT is one of those companies that many years from now DID NOT makes the changes necessary to survive. It seems quite possible now. In summary, great book with useful examples and ideas on making sure you and your company evaluate whether you need to ramp up your efforts.

I loved Bob Herbold's first book, The Fiefdom Syndrome. It had a very specific topic and was full of interesting ideas, observations and author's personal experiences from Procter & Gamble, Microsoft, and from his consulting practice.

Seduced by Success is not nearly as good. It lacks any strong unifying theme and the "traps" it describes are quite obvious and uninteresting. There is little deep thinking and, frankly, most of the text are digested Fortune articles about various companies.

It's a great book to read. In short, this book can be summarized into few key words that most people fail to admit:


Ignore the past, face the reality and move on

One book I read recently is "Seduced by Success" by Robert Herbold. I love the central theme of the book - Successful companies and people need to be careful of constantly learning and re-inventing themselves in order to stay competitive. Past glory can work against future success especially if you let it go to your head. "Success is a huge business vulnerability".

One thing I do not like about many self help books is they start with the assumption that you are a loser. I like this one that assumes you are a success so need to deal with that handicap.

The book plays to the expression "If you do what you always have done, you get what you always have got" which I modify to "If you do what you have always done, you will go bankrupt".

The book talks about the 9 traps of Success. There is a good review on Amazon by Robert Morrison here so i will not type all 9 traps.

One of the traps (#4) is Complexity. As business become successful and grow, often they add complexity and bureaucracy. I have always felt one of the goals of a big company is to act small. Or put in this context - be simple.

It ties with Trap #5 Bloat and rationalizing loss of agility.

The book is well organized and easy/fast to read. Highly recommended for the successful.

Of course the proper response to all of the traps is constant learning and evaluation combined with the humility to recognize that past success can take our edge off.

Robert Herbold once again demonstrates his understanding business leadership in Seduced by Success. The former COO of Microsoft and VP of Marketing from P&G reveals the pitfalls of success and what businesses need in order to stay great.

Success can be blinding. General Motors, Kodak and IBM are examples of top companies that embraced their hubris nature and paid the price of complacency.

The nine biggest success traps include:

Neglect: Sticking with yesterday's business model
Pride: Letting products and services become second rate
Boredom: Clinging to your once successful branding
Complexity: Letting processes run the business
Bloat: Losing agility
Mediocrity: Allowing sub par performance to persist
Lethargy: Nurturing a retirement home culture
Timidity: Permitting turf battles and infighting
Vagueness: Schizophrenic communication

Often business books value to the reader ends once one reviews the title, but Bob Herbold has written one of the exceptions. Using systematic and thoughtful approaches to companies whose successes have often blinded them to forthcoming challenges, Herbold provides the reader with meaningful recommendations that should make even the most high flying CEO sit down and and strategize.

When companies are successful they tend to hire too many people which raises costs, fractures lines of communications and leads to being unable to respond to changing industry trends. This is the core thought of Herbold, a long time executive at Proctor and Gamble and a seven year stint as Chief Operating Officer at Microsoft. He also recommends paranoia, if you think your competition is after you, pick up the pace. The meat of the book expanding on the core thought are nine success induced traps and how to detect and avoid them.

The book's points are illustrated by numerous case studies, some of these are well known, for others, Herbold shares inside knowledge. He is a masterful story teller. In fact my biggest gripe of the book is that he is so good at telling stories that when he shares the insights from his business career, I found myself wanting to skip the insights to jump to the next story. I will probably have to reread this book.

Glad I bought it, enjoyed reading it, Seduced by Success has earned a place on my bookshelf.