Critique Of "The Halo Effect"
Introduction: A War Against Clichés
In business world, things happen fast, markets emerge, markets disappear, and competition is keen. Therefore, business managers would like to find a formula, or at least some factors, to explain the success and failure of corporations and companies. But as the business world is so complicated, and becoming more complicated and uncertain in today's globalized world, it is hard to determine factors and solid solutions to business problems. Even massive data are gathered and with long time of studies, secrets of success are still not easy to uncover. So it is tempting for giving the promise of breakthroughs and secrets and quick fixes.
From journalists to academics, people are searching for ready-made answers, plug-and-play solutions and marriage of convenience. When a company adopts a new initiative, a new strategy, it would a brilliant strategy if it is successful, and would be concluded as a bad move when it fails. So when Lego, the toy firm, failed its launching of Harry Potter figures, people criticized it was drifting from its core. But when GE successfully went to launch the financial services then, nobody criticized it was straying from the core. So whether it is a good thing or bad thing to stray away from one's core business?
There are lots of business writings, no matter they are from press or academic journals, use the ends to justify the means. We see what we want to see. And we are deceived by delusions. The fundamental problem is we all like to read stories, not only reports. Many good researches about company performance, which are carefully done, tend not to provide clear and definitive guidelines for action. These are reports to show the facts we don't like to read. We want clear implications for action, we want to explain things.
A bestselling business book, Good to Great, which brings fame and fortune to the co-author...
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