How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things

How Excellent Companies Avoid Dumb Things: Breaking the 8 Hidden Barriers that Plague Even the Best Businesses by Neil Smith, 226 pages

In this business book, Smith describes several problems businesses face that block good ideas from being implemented, and offers ways to break through them. The barriers range from avoiding controversy, to poor management of time, to organizational silos, and a lot of them seem pretty obvious once Smith points them out. However, he does offer some great personal anecdotes to illustrate these issues and the potential solutions to them. Toward the end of the book, Smith also offers the principles he and his company (which is a consulting firm that helps companies institute change) abide by, and he details his 100-day process for creating the plans for these changes. Again, the principles are logical and seem like common sense once you read them, but Smith's description of his process is pretty boring.

Smith did a good job holding my attention through most of the book, but once he got to that process and started throwing in acronyms left and right, he lost me. Another problem I had with this book is that it's aimed almost solely at the CEOs and other higher-ups at large companies (and by large I mean 15,000+ employees). I chose this as a book for the Business Reads discussion group, and while some of the elements may be applicable to smaller businesses or non-management employees, a lot of it won't be.

One last quibble: I don't think this book is accurately named. Yes, the title makes you giggle a bit, but there's nothing about avoiding dumb things; it's all about creating opportunities or righting dumb processes that are already there.