10 warning signs that your business is failing

This article is inspired by the Ten Commandments for Business Failure — an interesting book written by Donald Keough. Don is on the board of Berkshire Hathaway, Allen & Company and The Coca Cola Company (where he worked for over four decades).

He has also been on the boards of Columbia Pictures, McDonald’s Corporation, The Washington Post Company, H. J. Heinz Company, and The Home Depot.

In our obsession with success, we often forget that it is equally, if not more, important to avoid failure.

This article is in the spirit of Charles Munger, who says, “All I want to know is where I'm going to die so I'll never go there.”

Here are the Ten (plus one bonus) commandments, that share the wisdom and business insights gathered over several decades and of immense value to any manager, businessman or investor.

Companies/executives displaying early warning signs of any of these are bound to fail:

Quit taking risks
Be inflexible
Isolate yourself
Assume infallibility
Play the game close to the foul line
Don’t take time to think
Put all the faith in experts and outside consultants
Love your bureaucracy
Send mixed messages
Be afraid of the future
Lose your passion for work — for life

Read the Business Line Article