The author of this book is probably no stranger to you – James Collins is the renowned author of business bestsellers Built to Last and Good to Great, the first focused on how to build a superior company, the second on ‘phoenixes’, ordinary companies that become great. In How the Mighty Fall, he explores instead the stories of once superior companies that become mediocre or even fail altogether. How were such mighty beasts brought to their knees?

Collins started to become interested in the topic of this book, “how do the mighty fall?”.

The question of "how do the mighty fall" became more urgent and important than ever, so Collins further prioritized the writing of his book on the topic. He and his team spent several years carefully selecting eleven companies to study and, using a research-grounded perspective of how decline can happen, came up with a ‘roadmap to decline’. This roadmap is divided into five stages, defined by him as: hubris born of success, undisciplined pursuit of more, denial of risk and peril, grasping for salvation, and capitulation to irrelevance or death. Companies can refer to the structure introduced in the book to better identify the current state of their business and hopefully get out of trouble, returning to the right path that once made them outstanding and brilliant.