Ego check

INTRODUCTION 1 The Four Sources of Hubris 3-- Do Check your Ego ¿ Just Don¿t Leave it At the Door! 5-- It¿s All in the Research 7-- How This Book Helps You Become a Better Decision-Maker 8-- CHAPTER 1: The High Stakes of Hubris 1-- A Deadly Lesson in Hubris 2-- A Framework for Managing Hubris while Remaining Highly Confident 8-- The Hallmarks of Confidence, Overconfidence, and Hubris 9-- Applying the Framework to Our Decisions 11-- Acknowledging the Dual Nature of Overconfident Thinking 14-- Considering the Case of Hank Greenberg: Overconfidence at the American International Group 19-- Summary 26-- CHAPTER 2: The Culture of Overconfidence: How We Manage Our Most Critical Decisions 1-- Overconfidence and Entrepreneurship: Dean Kamen and the Segway 2-- First Inventions: Designing Products for the Ill and Disabled 2-- From Inventor to Entrepreneur: The Segway Moves Kamen into Business Management 5-- Exploring the Limits of the Segway¿s Success 10-- Betting on Success: How Other Entrepreneurs Bank on Beating the Odds 13-- Overconfidence and Investing 16-- Overconfidence and Personal Health-Management 19-- Underestimating our Health Risks 19-- Overestimating Our Abilities to Diagnose and Cure Problems 20-- Encouraging Overconfidence in Doctors 25-- Hubris and Education-Management 27-- Training Students to be Overconfident 27-- Grade Inflation and Overconfidence in Higher Education 28-- Summary 30-- Chapter 3: How Excessive Pride Feeds Executive Hubris 1-- Understanding the Sources and Nature of Excessive Pride 2-- Apple Computer, Inc.: A Case Study of Excessive Pride 5-- Steve Jobs and the Limits of His Genius 7-- Sculley Lands at Apple 14-- Overestimating Skills and Underestimating the Market 18-- Jobs¿ NeXT Lesson in Overweening Pride 21-- Jobs¿ Grounds His Pride and Leverages His Talents 22-- Placing the Jobs and Sculley Experience in the Framework 25-- Invalid Data: How CEOs Respond to Positive and Negative Data. 27-- Celebrity CEOs: Buying into the Myth 28-- The Dangers of Denial: How Executives Fail when they Ignore Negative Feedback 31-- Guided by Pride: A Link between Executive Hubris and Higher Premiums Paid in Mergers and Acquisitions 34-- Avoiding and Managing Excessive Pride 39-- Summary 41-- CHAPTER 4: Getting the Right Help: Delegating and Decision-Making 1-- Getting The Right Input When Decision Making is Centralized 3-- HP¿s Carly Fiorina Goes it Alone¿And Loses 3-- Finding and Trusting the Right Foils at Oracle Corp. 9-- Ellison Learns the Rules of Sound Delegation 10-- Differing Views of Ellison¿s Trusted Advisors 13-- Preventing Power From Begetting Hubris: Evidence from Berkshire Hathaway¿s Warren Buffett 20-- Decision-Making Based on Well-Founded Confidence, Not Ego and Pride 22-- Knowing When to Step Back, Step In, and Step Aside 24-- Getting the Right Help When Decision-Making is Decentralized 27-- When Executives Trust Too Much: Martin Sorrell and the WPP Group¿s ¿Benattigate¿ 27-- Meg Whitman and Decentralized Decision Making at EBay. 33-- Empowering Decision-Makers at All Levels 33-- A Structured Approach to Defusing Overconfident Decisions 36-- Summary 38-- CHAPTER 5: GROUNDING JUDGMENT IN FEEDBACK 1-- Gauging the Quality of Feedback and Our Willingness to Act on It 2-- Decision-making Based on Grounded Judgment. 5-- Decision-Making Based on Selective Judgment 9-- Linking Compensation to Overconfident Judgment 10-- Optimism as a Tool for Dealing with Relentless Negative Feedback 12-- Decision-Making Based On Speculative Judgment 14-- Merck¿s Management of Vioxx 16-- Under-estimating Risks and Over-estimating the Power of Marketing 21-- From Speculative to Hapless Judgment at Merck: Failing to Act on Feedback about Vioxx. 24-- A Long and Painful Lesson in Executive Hubris 26-- Decision-Making Based on Hapless Judgment 32-- Using Forced Ranking Systems to Provide Effective Feedback 33-- The Failings of the Forced Ranking System 35-- Summary 37-- CHAPTER 6: Managing Tomorrow Today 1-- A Framework for Consequence Management 3-- Decision-Making At Scaled Composites 8-- Establishing What Could Go Wrong with a Premature Launch of SpaceShipOne 10-- Acting on Problems that Emerged During SpaceShipOne¿s Testing 11-- Scaled¿s Backup and Loss-Mitigation Action 13-- On-Going Challenges: From SpaceShipOne to Space Tourism 14-- Decision-Making and Consequence Management at NASA 16-- Underestimating the Worst Case Scenario 17-- NASA¿s Failure to Act on Adverse Knowledge: Evidence From Challenger and Columbia 20-- A Failure to Prepare for the Consequences of a Shuttle Disaster 24-- Voicing Concerns in a ¿Mission Accomplished¿ Culture 27-- Constructing a Process for Establishing What Can go Wrong 29-- Priming the Organization to Act On Evidence Of Problems 30-- Building a Backup or Loss-mitigation Action Plan 31-- Summary 32-- -- Chapter 7: From Overconfidence To Hubris ¿ Jean-Marie Messier¿s Reign At Vivendi 1-- Messier¿s Rising Star Explodes into Excessive Pride 4-- Messier Takes Charge 5-- A Love Affair with the Press 7-- Messier Chooses Pride Over Judgment 8-- Squandered Resources: Messier Fails to Heed Input and Delegate Decisions 11-- Selective Judgment at Work: Messier Dismisses Negative Feedback 14-- The Final Act of Hubris: A Failure to Manage Consequences 16-- Summary 20-- CHAPTER 8: Overcoming Hubris--Lessons from Michael Dell of Dell, Inc. 1-- Michael Dell¿s Grounded Pride 3-- Struggling to Maintain an Internal Locus of Pride 4-- Learning From False Pride 7-- Getting The Right Help: Michael Dell Turns to Lee Walker and Kevin Rollins 12-- Bringing in Experts to Help a Changing Business 13-- Sharing Power and Delegating Decision-Making 15-- Leveraging Differences in Collaborative Decision-Making 17-- Ensuring That Executives Use Extensive and Timely Feedback 18-- Managing Tomorrow Through Today¿s Decisions And Actions 21-- Entering a New Market: Managing What Could Go Wrong 22-- Mitigating Negative Consequences 23-- 25-- Summary 26-- Some Closing Comments 28-- Index-- -- -- --

No one executive is immune from that difficult-to-distinguish line that divides the self-confidence required of a successful CEO from the hubris seen at the root of so many corporate scandals today. We can count Warren Buffett, Steve Jobs, Martha Stewart, and Jack Welch among the business leaders who have been infected with hubris at various stages of their careers - and seen their lives and companies suffer as a result. Every executive is vulnerable to hubris when they become dependent on wealth, status, and other extrinsic rewards for their sense of worth; when they embark on ventures that cross beyond their capabilities; when they unduly rely on the advice and input of others to execute their vision; and when they simply assume that their plans for the future will be realized without obstacle. Understanding these four key dynamics and the mistakes made as a result of falling prey to them will pave the road for business professionals to understand how they can guard against their own hubris while still building upon their unparalleled will to reach even greater levels of success. ; ; ;