How the mightly fall

is the latest book by Jim Collins:  http://www.jimcollins.com/books.html

The book is a study of successful companies that had some significant failure, often resulting in terminal collapse.  The five stages he identifies are:

• Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success 
• Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More
• Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril
• Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation
• Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death

In some ways the second stage seemed most characteristic.  It seemed that the companies lost focus on doing a good job, and began to measure themselves by external markers of success that were not relevant to the job they were doing - such as growth, or stock-market price.

This reminded me of the feature of the successful companies that Collins calls 'the hedgehog concept' : "having a simple, extremely clear concept of what their business is".