We often talk about leaders wearing blinders, being xenophobic in their focus, engaging in group think, and indulging in cognitive dissonance. Not only are these captains of the Titanic the victims of icebergs they are the creators of the icebergs. Finally, when it’s much too late they try to turn the ship around but the course to destruction has long ago been set and the first ship to go down was “The Bear Sterns.”
Read these two books before you get trapped by your organizational culture, your xenophobia, and your own sense of glory:
House of Cards: A Tale of Hubris and Wretched Excess on Wall Street, by William D. Cohan.
And, Street Fighters, by Kate Kelly.
Update: The New York Times just did a piece on this subject and sums up these books well.
