Episode 051: Autopsy of a Failed Business

Can business success lead to business failure? Yes. I’ve allowed it to happen. Seven years removed from my time at one business, I had time to do an autopsy. Here is what I learned.

One of my favorite authors, if you haven’t noticed already is Greg McKeown, author of the book,Essentialism. He writes about what he calls the clarity paradox. The question he asked is:

Why don’t successful people and organizations automatically become very successful?

He then presented four stages which moderately successful business often go through:

Phase 1: When we really have clarity of purpose, it leads to success.Phase 2: When we have success, it leads to more options and opportunities.Phase 3: When we have increased options and opportunities, it leads to diffused efforts.Phase 4: Diffused efforts undermine the very clarity that led to our success in the first place.

The business I was a part of at the time went through all four phases. I’ll share our experience and give you a closeup view, an autopsy of our failed business.