Comments on: Books I’ve read – November 2009

By: Books I have read – December 2009 | Pyxis blog

Books I have read – December 2009 | Pyxis blog — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 14:17:47 +0000

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By: Andrew Meyer

Andrew Meyer — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 05:13:04 +0000

Cool. I think you’ll enjoy it. It’s a great book, especially if you really bought into Collin’s arguments. I certainly did. Very eye opening.

All my best,

Andy

By: Martin Proulx

Martin Proulx — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:16:53 +0000

Thanks for your suggestion Andrew. I haven’t read “The Halo Effect” yet but your description sure makes me want to. I have added it to my shopping cart with a few other books. I’ll post some comment on my blog once I read it.

By: Andrew Meyer

Andrew Meyer — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 16:29:57 +0000

If you’re a fan of “Good to Great”, you should read “The Halo Effect”. Rozenzweig essentially attacks Collin’s use of warmed over, generic ideas and total lack of research backing his examples and claims.

It’s very well written and eye opening. It’s a great mental exercise to see ideas you believe in taken apart. It may or may not change your opinion on the ideas, but it will make you more sophisticated in dealing with people who present deeply flawed logic. In order for the lessons to be really meaningful, it helps if you really believe the logic presented.

For example, Collins looks at successful companies and then tries to discover what made them successful. This survivorship bias blinds one from seeing whether unsuccessful companies were doing exactly the same things, but failed. Collins doesn’t considers this possibility, but that is deeply troubling if you’re thinking you’ll go from good to great by adopting his strategies.

What’s even more troubling and a point Collins has equally never addressed since publishing “Good to Great” is what happened to his examples after the time frame he considered. For most of his examples, it’s a pretty sad story.

You’ll probably still agree with many of Collins’ ideas, but reading “The Halo Effect” will make you much more sophisticated in looking at how people present arguments.