Rating: 
Summary: The strong shall become weak, and the weak strong again
Review: At some point in a great battle between good and evil, at least as portrayed in pop culture, we can expect the villain to gloatingly assert: "It is your very goodness that will make you weak and fail." Professor Donald Sull is no super-villain but makes a similar, though rather more developed, claim about the best businesses. Rather than blaming the failure of a previously excellent company on incompetence, corruption, laziness, or lack of imagination, Sull locates the problem of stumbling giants in active inertia: the tendency of management to respond to disruptive changes by accelerating activities that succeeded in the past. In Revival of the Fittest, Sull analyzes this barrier and helps managers tackle the demanding task of overcoming it. To overcome active inertia, Sull recommends neither evolutionary nor revolutionary change typically prescribed for faltering champions. Instead he explains the power of transforming commitments. Commitments matters, he explains, in that they both enable effective management and can disable it when they no longer fit what is needed. Managers select, make, honor, and less often remake commitments or binding actions by investing capital, making personnel decisions, exiting a business, making public promises, making public promises, forging relationships with resource providers, writing contracts, or by manipulating information. Commitments are a powerful tool for creating the desired future but they also become cognitive, cultural, and structural shackles that prevent a company from changing - even when the need to change is clear to all. Companies take shape at the beginning of the "life cycle of commitments" through defining commitments consisting of strategic frames, resources, processes, relationships, and values. The character of the organization hardens over time as managers make reinforcing commitments large and small. The best companies develop a "success formula" that becomes the envy of competitors and the source of best practices for writers and consultants. This story takes a tragic turn when, eventually and inevitably, a gap opens and widens between the nature of the company and the business environment. The only way out - if one exists at all - is through transforming commitments that require boldness, prudence, and tenacity. Sull uses pairs of companies to show how some have spiraled down while others successfully made and kept their transforming commitments. IBM's justly famous transformation under Gerstner exemplifies the latter, though this is only one of a wide range of illuminating examples in the book. Sull casts light on the active inertia trap which can arise from the basis of any of the original defining commitments. He follows this with eight risk factors to check for and some diagnostic tests to administer. If transforming commitments fit your situation, you must then choose the right anchor. This may be a new strategic frame but may also be new resources, processes, relationships, or values. The right anchor needs to be worked on by the right person who gives the transforming commitments traction by making commitments credible, clear, and courageous. Since commitments are powerful tools, Sull's cautious advice includes an unflinching look at seven common mistakes that can lead transformation efforts off-track. Neither does Sull allow managers to anticipate the benefits without also appreciating the personal costs. The book does not try to delve deeply into every relevant aspect of each stage, allow the book to convey vital points while remaining slim enough for busy executives to actually read.
Rating: 
Summary: Addresses both the preventions and the cures
Review: Expertly written by Donald N. Sull (Assistant Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School), Revival Of The Fittest: Why Good Companies Go Bad And How Great Managers Remake Them informatively examines why successful businesses so often fail, and the means by which such sinking corporations can be turned around. Warning against the tendency toward "active inertia" (relying so heavily on methods that have worked in the past that one fails to adapt in time to changes in the market, customer base, or general surroundings), Revival Of The Fittest focuses upon the crucial importance of picking the right person for the job, the common pitfalls ("seven deadly sins") of attempting to transform companies, and a great deal more. Revival Of The Fittest is commended as being an excellent assessment that addresses both the preventions and the cures for corporate adversities.
Rating:
Summary: Successful Second Acts
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in 1940 that there are no second acts in American Lives. Professor Sull's witty, crystalline prose in Revival of the Fittest offers a rebuttal. Sull's case-studies of corporate rebounds and managerial reinventions provides a global array of second acts. Contrary to the following review, Sull's wise reflections, his acute hindsight, on what separates mid-course corporate successes from failures is full of insights, though not quick-fixes or one-size-fits-all makeovers. Rather, Sull provides an array of diagnostic tools for managers, helping them isolate the "active inertia"--a term he has coined and that is gaining currency among business theorists--and sift through the vast horizon of possibilities and risks managers in crisis must face. A multi-disciplinary work with a global perspective, Revival of the Fittest is both informative and potentially transforming.
Rating:
Summary: Successful Second Acts
Review: F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in 1940 that there are no second acts in American Lives. Professor Sull's witty, crystalline prose in Revival of the Fittest offers a rebuttal. Sull's case-studies of corporate rebounds and managerial reinventions provides a global array of second acts. Contrary to the following review, Sull's wise reflections, his acute hindsight, on what separates mid-course corporate successes from failures is full of insights, though not quick-fixes or one-size-fits-all makeovers. Rather, Sull provides an array of diagnostic tools for managers, helping them isolate the "active inertia"--a term he has coined and that is gaining currency among business theorists--and sift through the vast horizon of possibilities and risks managers in crisis must face. A multi-disciplinary work with a global perspective, Revival of the Fittest is both informative and potentially transforming.
Rating:
Summary: Revival of the Fittest
Review: I was in the author's class 11 years ago at Harvard Business School when he was getting his degree. The high quality of Don's book Revival of the Fittest is no surprise - his insights were always superior (deep, relevant, and entertaining). No one else came close. Revival of the Fittest is built on persuasive and powerful arguments that become actionable through the mechanisms/exercises he identifies. I'm passing the book to each member of my company's executive team - I've said that it's a must read. I hope that the incumbent set in our industry doesn't read this. Applause for their "active inertia" while the sharp blade of significant innovation gets them in the soft underbelly. So much of the framework was relevant even for early stage organizations like ours - recognizing the active inertia enables us to take greater chances in seeking collaborative arrangements with these potential competitors. Revival of the Fittest and other recent research-based books including Creative Destruction demonstrate that change in industry after industry comes from outside the firm - and significant innovation comes from the margin of the industry. I particularly enjoyed learning how the "success formula" for an organization often mutates into blinders and millstones - early insights and truths become shibboleths. I read business books constantly - this one is a keeper!
Rating:
Summary: Want to change your company, read this one.
Review: Like many books, Revival of the Fittest suggests that how firms cope with change determines their fate. Don Sull argues that because of the landscape in which firms operate changes, in order to stay competitive, their strategies and commitments should also change. However, managers have a tendency to adhere to what have brought them success. This often results in what Sull terms "active inertia" where managers do more of what worked in the past but irrelevant in a new environment. Unlike other books, Revival of the Fittest is packed with practical advices on how to manage change: from how to choose transforming commitments to what are the considerations for shareholders. This book does not tell readers what to do as the author realizes that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions but rather gives guidance to those who want to make change happen. What is most interesting to me is his method of pairing firms in the same industry who had been affected by the same change and yet one prospered and the other failed. This gives an idea on what constitutes success and failures under different circumstances. The pairs include many firms across the globe in different industries, such as: Goodyear versus Firestone (U.S.A.), Samsung versus Daewoo (Korea) and Lloyds TSB versus National Westminster. (U.K.). This is a book about how to transform an organization and more. In short, what one learns from the book is not only about managerial commitments but also personal ones. The book closes with three simple questions about commitment: (1) what is the right thing to do?, (2) what hinders you? and (3) why wait?.
Rating:
Summary: Want to change your company, read this one.
Review: Like many books, Revival of the Fittest suggests that how firms cope with change determines their fate. Don Sull argues that because of the landscape in which firms operate changes, in order to stay competitive, their strategies and commitments should also change. However, managers have a tendency to adhere to what have brought them success. This often results in what Sull terms "active inertia" where managers do more of what worked in the past but irrelevant in a new environment. Unlike other books, Revival of the Fittest is packed with practical advices on how to manage change: from how to choose transforming commitments to what are the considerations for shareholders. This book does not tell readers what to do as the author realizes that there are no one-size-fits-all solutions but rather gives guidance to those who want to make change happen. What is most interesting to me is his method of pairing firms in the same industry who had been affected by the same change and yet one prospered and the other failed. This gives an idea on what constitutes success and failures under different circumstances. The pairs include many firms across the globe in different industries, such as: Goodyear versus Firestone (U.S.A.), Samsung versus Daewoo (Korea) and Lloyds TSB versus National Westminster. (U.K.). This is a book about how to transform an organization and more. In short, what one learns from the book is not only about managerial commitments but also personal ones. The book closes with three simple questions about commitment: (1) what is the right thing to do?, (2) what hinders you? and (3) why wait?.
Rating:
Summary: Great Framework for Leading Change in the Face of Adversity
Review: Most business books that tackle the lofty goals such as organizational change, transformation strategy and leadership lessons end up boiling the ocean. By trying to be all gospel to every sort of manager, such books fail in keeping the attention of the reader, or if they do so, they utilize wild-eyed case studies and pithy advice that is neither relevant or actionable in today's world. Not so in "Revival of the Fittest," by Don Sull. Professor Sull's work is ground-breaking in its simplicity: take a stand, take the consequences. Knowing what you are committing to as an organization is as important as knowing why you are committing to it. His approach and his reasoning stand the test of the time-tested, out-of-the-box analogy as well. Sull presents a construct that works as well for a title that might read: "Why Good Marriages Go Bad and How Great Spouses Remake Them." In essence this is Sull's brilliance, in taking a complex, strategic issue and distilling it down to its core. Sull keeps you engaged throughout the distillation column in his succint writing style. This book is a secret weapon; a crash course in taking one's leadership inside an organization to the next level. Rip Gerber
former CEO
Rating:
Summary: Best Book for the Best Managers
Review: Most business books that tackle the lofty goals such as organizational change, transformation strategy and leadership lessons end up boiling the ocean. By trying to be all gospel to every sort of manager, such books fail in keeping the attention of the reader, or if they do so, they utilize wild-eyed case studies and pithy advice that is neither relevant or actionable in today's world. Not so in "Revival of the Fittest," by Don Sull. Professor Sull's work is ground-breaking in its simplicity: take a stand, take the consequences. Knowing what you are committing to as an organization is as important as knowing why you are committing to it. His approach and his reasoning stand the test of the time-tested, out-of-the-box analogy as well. Sull presents a construct that works as well for a title that might read: "Why Good Marriages Go Bad and How Great Spouses Remake Them." In essence this is Sull's brilliance, in taking a complex, strategic issue and distilling it down to its core. Sull keeps you engaged throughout the distillation column in his succint writing style. This book is a secret weapon; a crash course in taking one's leadership inside an organization to the next level. Rip Gerber
former CEO
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing - lots of hindsight with no insight
Review: Not very impressed. This book is based upon many interviews and observations with over 2 dozen companies around the world. However its all observation based upon hindsight of 'what' happened, with no real revelations into 'why'. The selections are not convincing. There's plenty of reference to Asahi Breweries in Japan who literally bet the whole Company on one idea about creating a market for Dry Beer. It paid off, but such a venture was very dangerous. Other Companies are studied that also bet everything yet didn't pay off; but there's no real insight into why the outcomes were different. The index is poor; many Companies mentioned in the text don't appear in the Index. Compaq appears indexed under both 'failed transformations' and 'successful transformations' - so I re-read the relevant pages. It's the same anecdote, simply saying that what they did was a success 1991-98, but then caused their failing post-98? So what should they have done? If following the same action is deemed a 'fail' over 10 years, is it appropriate to still call it a 'success' over 8 years? It's a history lesson, but with no real tools & techniques to take away for the future.
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