Many years ago, Harvard Business School perfected something called the “case study method.”   A new educational innovation that presented the challenges confronting companies, nonprofits, and government organizations—complete with the constraints and incomplete information found in real business issues.

Students learned that through the process of exchanging perspectives, countering and defending points, and building on each other's ideas, they became adept at analyzing issues, exercising judgment, and making difficult decisions.

Business journalist Sean Silcoff,  in his new book,  Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, conducts his own case study.

He reminds us that in real business situations, unlike business school, there are no simple solutions; personalities matter and, and he shows how easy it is to go from leader to irrelevance in an economy that values creative destruction far more than the status quo.

My conversation with Sean Silcoff: