How to Kill Your Company: 50 Ways You're Bleeding Your Organization and Damaging Your Career
By Ken Kirsh
()
About this ebook
How to Kill Your Company is a short and wonderful romp of a book. Ken Kirsh provides us with fastest way Ive ever seen to help every leader become more self-aware, and in turn, build companies that thrive rather than fail.
Robert Sutton, Stanford Professor and author of the New York Times bestsellers Good Boss, Bad Boss and The No Asshole Rule
Ken Kirshs book, How to Kill Your Company, is an intellectual shot in the brain. If you buy it, read it, study it, and put it into action, it will prevent you from shooting yourself in the foot and in the wallet.
Jeffrey Gitomer, author of Little Red Book of Selling
Never have I seen so many good, actionable thoughts in so few pages.
Peter Ricchiuti, Professor, A.B. Freeman School of Business, Tulane University
For small businesses or big, Kirsh delivers 50 punchy and powerful dont dos that apply to CEOs, clerks and every employee in between.
Chris Altizer, Senior Vice President Human Resources, Pfizer
Unapologetic and in your face, How to Kill Your Company exposes 50 of the most common and detrimental behaviors that people, including you, unwittingly exhibit on a daily basisand theyre killing your company.
Ken Kirsh
Ken Kirsh grew up in Philadelphia. Cut him and he bleeds music and cheesesteaks. After a number of years working for the man, he specialized in communications as a consultant and award-winning corporate event producer. This outside perspective allowed him to observe something impossible to see from the inside: that people behave alike in ways that repeatedly hurt themselves and their companies, and that these behaviors apply to all industries and roles, up one side of the corporate ladder and down the other. His new book, How To Kill Your Company, reveals 50 ways you could be damaging your organization and your career, then gives you immediate means to make productive change. "I'm so fascinated by how rampant these counter-productive behaviors are, that I'm compelled to stick our collective faces in it. Someone has to tell you the truth and it may as well be me."
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How to Kill Your Company - Ken Kirsh
How to
KILL YOUR COMPANY
50 Ways You’re Bleeding Your
Organization and Damaging Your Career
Ken Kirsh
www.KillYourCompany.com
iUniverse, Inc.
Bloomington
How To Kill Your Company
50 Ways You’re Bleeding Your Organization and Damaging Your Career
Copyright © 2012 by Ken Kirsh
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
iUniverse books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:
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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
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Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-0526-7 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-4759-0527-4 (e)
ISBN: 978-1-4759-0528-1 (dj)
iUniverse rev. date: 8/17/2012
WARNING
No formulas, paradigms, charts, matrices, acronyms, or secrets
were used in the making of this book.
To David
Learn from your mistakes and you’ll get there easier.
Learn from others’ mistakes and you’ll get there faster.
"Everyone thinks of changing the world,
but no one thinks of changing himself."
—Leo Tolstoy
Contents
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
How to Kill Your Company
I. With Your Personality
Chapter 1 Set A Bad Example
Chapter 2 Be Too Controlling
Chapter 3 Put Your Ego In The Way
Chapter 4 Hog All The Credit
Chapter 5 Be Afraid Of Commitment
Chapter 6 Allow Your Attention Span To Shrink
Chapter 7 Be A Hypocrite
Chapter 8 Lack Confidence
Chapter 9 Act Or Feel Entitled
Chapter 10 Don’t Be Yourself
Chapter 11 Collect A Paycheck
Chapter 12 Be Ignorant And Apathetic
Chapter 13 Be Too Complacent
Chapter 14 Resist Change And Opportunity
Chapter 15 Be Surprised By The Expected
Chapter 16 Look For Secrets And Shortcuts
Chapter 17 Spread Negative Waves
II. With Your Relationships
Chapter 18 Lack Trust, Respect, And Empathy
Chapter 19 Don’t Compromise
Chapter 20 Build And Protect Silos
Chapter 21 Be Too Political
Chapter 22 Cut Yourself Off
Chapter 23 Trust Your Advisor
Chapter 24 Gossip Too Much
Chapter 25 Bleed Suppliers
Chapter 26 Matter More Than The Team
Chapter 27 Don’t Know Your Audience
Chapter 28 Don’t Belong There
Chapter 29 Win Battles Instead Of Wars
Chapter 30 Pass the Buck
III. With Your Habits
Chapter 31 Suck At Delegating
Chapter 32 Underthink Things
Chapter 33 Overthink Things
Chapter 34 Be On Too Many Conference Calls
Chapter 35 Attend Too Many Meetings
Chapter 36 Give Up Too Soon Or Too Late
Chapter 37 Cut Corners
Chapter 38 Misunderstand The Basics
Chapter 39 Be Accountable Without Control
Chapter 40 Email Too Much
Chapter 41 Put Your Reputation At Risk
Chapter 42 Adhere To The 80/20 Rule
Chapter 43 Lack A Moral Compass
Chapter 44 Put Things Off
Chapter 45 Trust Your Instincts
Chapter 46 Be Slow To Recover
Chapter 47 Rush To Judgment
Chapter 48 Yin When You Should Yang
Chapter 49 Don’t Follow Up
Chapter 50 Confuse Your Priorities
NOW WHAT?
WHAT’S AT STAKE?
bullet_gray.jpgWhat This Book Will Do for You
Left unchecked, the stark truths exposed in How to Kill Your Company will undermine your company’s profitability and lead to your great undoing—along with your company’s image and stock price. You will no doubt recognize friends, associates, and high-level executives—some of them public figures—throughout these pages.
The