I don’t like most business books.
Written after success, they attempt to look back on the (sometimes fuzzy) facts and construct a formula that caused it. But success is bad at following formulas (evidenced by the fact that the millions of readers don’t succeed by following them).
I’m not saying it’s all luck and success has no discernible causes. What I’m suspicious of is our ability to discern them, especially in detail. There are so many variables, and we are really bad at knowing which are causal after we’ve already won. It’s too easy and satisfying to look back on success and say, “These were the three reasons” – reasons that always seem to make the story more convenient.
This is why we learn more from failure than success. It’s true, the same number of variable exists and causality isn’t always clear, but the ability to tell the story we wish was true is reduced. Ego is muted. We are humbled and have to face the fact that what we did didn’t work.
Even for success stories, I think the most valuable and applicable lessons are the negative ones. Less, “These were the keys to success,” and more, “These were the keys to avoiding failure”.
I’m reminded of Barry Sander’s answer to how he had such creative and elusive moves on the football field. “I don’t like get get tackled. It hurts.” Instead of, “These three techniques are the keys to my success”, Barry simply explained what he didn’t want to do; get hit.
If you know what to avoid, everything else is fair game. The paths to success are many. Avoid the pitfalls (which are surprisingly attractive) and you might find a way to win that breaks all the other rules.
I’d like to see more business books about companies that failed, and more books about those that succeeded focusing on what they didn’t do rather the genius of what they did.