Why Smart Executives Fail: and What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes.

Given the increased focus on meeting state and national standards, educational leaders may be interested in why smart executives sometimes fail. Sydney Finkelstein and his research team report on 51 company failures in Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn From Their Mistakes.

This book presents two challenges for the busy educator. The detailed stories of company failures found in Part I can be somewhat discouraging and hard to connect to education. School leaders may find Parts II and III, dealing with common failings and how to avoid failure, more readily applicable to education.

As education faces the massive challenges of No Child Left Behind, it is sobering to learn that most failing companies had ample warning and chose not to take appropriate action.

Instead, failing companies rested too long on past successes, failed to confront reality, blocked essential information and failed to change course when needed.

Separate chapters provide details and examples of how companies failed to recognize or intentionally ignored critical issues.

Lessons on how to avoid failure are found in the final section. Advice includes: Remain open to new ideas; ask for bad news; create corporate values; learn from mistakes; create an open-minded culture that asks questions; and seek new information in times of change.

Possibly the most compelling lesson in Finkelstein's book is this: Don't try to know it all. Instead, create a learning organization--one that has the "energy, resilience, culture and talent to manage the unknowable."

(Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes by Sydney Finkelstein, 2003, Portfolio, New York, N.Y., 319 pp., $26.95 hardcover)

Larry Nyland Superintendent, Marysville School District, Marysville, Wash.