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The Halo Effect: ... and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers
by: Phil Rosenzweig

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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658
Format: Bargain Price
Label: Free Press
Manufacturer: Free Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: February 06, 2007
Publisher: Free Press
Sales Rank: 441306
Studio: Free Press

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
Much of our business thinking is shaped by delusions -- errors of logic and flawed judgments that distort our understanding of the real reasons for a company's performance. In a brilliant and unconventional book, Phil Rosenzweig unmasks the delusions that are commonly found in the corporate world. These delusions affect the business press and academic research, as well as many bestselling books that promise to reveal the secrets of success or the path to greatness. Such books claim to be based on rigorous thinking, but operate mainly at the level of storytelling. They provide comfort and inspiration, but deceive managers about the true nature of business success.

The most pervasive delusion is the Halo Effect. When a company's sales and profits are up, people often conclude that it has a brilliant strategy, a visionary leader, capable employees, and a superb corporate culture. When performance falters, they conclude that the strategy was wrong, the leader became arrogant, the people were complacent, and the culture was stagnant. In fact, little may have changed -- company performance creates a Halo that shapes the way we perceive strategy, leadership, people, culture, and more.

Drawing on examples from leading companies including Cisco Systems, IBM, Nokia, and ABB, Rosenzweig shows how the Halo Effect is widespread, undermining the usefulness of business bestsellers from In Search of Excellence to Built to Last and Good to Great.

Rosenzweig identifies nine popular business delusions. Among them:

The Delusion of Absolute Performance: Company performance is relative to competition, not absolute, which is why following a formula can never guarantee results. Success comes from doing things better than rivals, which means that managers have to take risks.

The Delusion of Rigorous Research: Many bestselling authors praise themselves for the vast amount of data they have gathered, but forget that if the data aren't valid, it doesn't matter how much was gathered or how sophisticated the research methods appear to be. They trick the reader by substituting sizzle for substance.

The Delusion of Single Explanations: Many studies show that a particular factor, such as corporate culture or social responsibility or customer focus, leads to improved performance. But since many of these factors are highly correlated, the effect of each one is usually less than suggested.

In what promises to be a landmark book, The Halo Effect replaces mistaken thinking with a sharper understanding of what drives business success and failure. The Halo Effect is a guide for the thinking manager, a way to detect errors in business research and to reach a clearer understanding of what drives business success and failure.

Skeptical, brilliant, iconoclastic, and mercifully free of business jargon, Rosenzweig's book is nevertheless dead serious, making his arguments about important issues in an unsparing and direct way that will appeal to a broad business audience. For managers who want to separate fact from fiction in the world of business, The Halo Effect is essential reading -- witty, often funny, and sharply argued, it's an antidote to so much of the conventional thinking that clutters business bookshelves.

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Felt like a really important class taught by a really dry professor
This is a short book; it only seemed long. Useful, thought-provoking, and (in spite of the dry writing) very persuasive. Started and finished strong. The middle chapters droned on and on without really saying anything. Read chapters 1, 9 & 10. Skim chapters 2-8. You won't miss anything but filler added to keep book from being a really good paper.

Rating:

- Myth Buster
Ever read one of those business books that touts the greatness of certain companies only to find that the same great companies are in the toilet a couple of years after the published date? The Built to Last companies were seemingly not built to last after all, and the companies that went from Good to Great have slid to mediocrity. Phil Rosenzweig explains that the research commonly done in these widely lauded books is invalid. It is based on people's opinions (i.e. business writers, company managers, etc.). These opinions are all clouded by the Halo Effect, and the fact that there are truckloads of information collected does not change that fact. Wikipedia defines the halo effect as a cognitive bias whereby the perception of a particular trait is influenced by the perception of the former traits in a sequence of interpretations. So, when a company is doing well, people will tend to believe that it has great leadership, ... Read More

Rating:

- Too Smug for My Taste
Rosenzweig's information is interesting in a 'myth busting' sort of way, but for my taste I didn't care for the book. Let me share with you why.

The author spendsover 150 pages chopping down the premises that Tom Peters, Jim Collins and others have shared in their best sellers. All the while, he doesn't really point out what he'd do 'differently' or 'better' or 'instead'...he just sort of scoffs at what he finds to be innacurate assessments.

(Which is debateable - the information was valid at the time, just the companies profiled often faltered in the long run.)

Finally, after much scoffing and myth-busting, he gives props to 3 CEOs/companies that meet his idea of what is 'great'.
(I say great because his earlier-mentioned targets are Jim Collins' "Good to Great" and Tom Peters' "In Search of Excellence".)

Unfortunately, The Halo Effect is written with a certain ... Read More

Rating:

- Must read for any business manager or business analyst
If you are looking for the "Get Rich Quick" scheme or "Key to Business Success", this book is NOT for you as the author offered none of this. What he offered is far more useful and practical than any business books you would read or may have read. Rosensweig helped us to see falsehood and delusions common in our daily business "analytic", from investment reports to the thousands of business books (e.g. In Search of Excellence) which supposedly offers you the "key to success" or "factors to create greatness". From Wall Street Journal stories on "best run companies" to PBS series showcasing the "best management practice". Rosensweig showed us that the factors that create "enduring success" are just fables not supportable by facts measured by net income, operating income or investor returns. The stories of how the best managed companies as reported by popular media were just stories of halo effect which makes interesting ... Read More

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