1. Illusions of Synergy1 H. Allen Smith,
The Compleat Practical Joker (New York: Doubleday, 1953).
2 David Harding and Sam Rovit,
Mastering the Merger: Four Critical Decisions That Make or Break the Deal (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004).
3 Scott Christofferson, Rob McNish, and Diane Sias, “Where Mergers Go Wrong,”
McKinsey on Finance, 2004.
4 Matthias M. Bekier, Anna J. Bogardus, and Timothy Oldham, “Mastering Revenue Growth in M&A,”
McKinsey Quarterly, 2000.
5 Mark Sirower,
The Synergy Trap (New York: Free Press, 1997).
6 Caroline Calkins, Chad Smith, and Dr. John J. Sv iokla, “M ergers an d Ac quisitions in th e Age ofof Business Platforms,” white paper, Diamond Management & Technology Consultants, 2006.
7 Sirower,
The Synergy Trap. 8 Gavin Souter, “Unum, Provident Join in $5.4 Billion Merger,”
Business Insurance, November 30, 1998.
9 Bob Libbey, speaking on a conference call as part of Best Practices in Corporate Communications e-conference, March 29, 2000.
10 Ron Panko, “Sharpening the Focus: UnumProvident is in the latter phases of a multiyear reorganization to become the leading disability writer and win the favor of equity and ratings analysts,”
Best’s Review, August 2, 2002.
11 Thomas Wailgum, “The Quest for Customer Data Integration,”
CIO magazine, August 1, 2006.
12 Memo from Tom Hey, senior vice president of risk management at Provident, 1994.
13 Joan Hangarter, plaintiff, v. The Paul Revere Life Insurance Company, et. al., defendants, United States District Court, District of Northern California, Case No. C 99-5286 JL.
14 Dean Foust, “Disability Claim Denied!”
BusinessWeek, December 22, 2003.
15 John H. Langbein, “Trust Law as Regulatory Law: The Unum / Provident Scandal and Judicial Review of Benefit Denials Under ERISA,” Yale Law School Research Paper No. 329, June 26, 2006.
16 “State Insurance Commissioners Reach Settlement with Unum Provident,”
Insure.com, November 19, 2004.
17 Edward D. Murphy, “CEO: UnumProvident Healthier,”
Portland Press Herald, December 13, 2005.
18 “UnumProvident Woes Foreseen Before Merger”
Maine Today Business News, March 31, 2004.
19 Judy Morris, MD, letter to the Maine Department of Professional and Financial Regulation, Bureau of Insurance, May 25, 1999.
20 Robert Berner, “Federated’s Fingerhut Fiasco,”
BusinessWeek, December 18, 2000.
1 “The Most Dangerous Words on Wall Street,”
Fortune, September 3, 2007.
2 Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway annual report, 2002.
3 Gretchen Morgenson, “There’s No Superhero in the Wings,”
New York Times, November 11, 2007.
4 Ben Finkelstein,
The Politics of Public Fund Investing (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006).
5 Alex Berenson, “A Boom Built Upon Sand, Gone Bust,”
New York Times, November 25, 2001.
6 “U.S. RMBS Default History Shows Less Than 1 of Rated Cases Have Defaulted,” Standard & Poor’s, November 18, 2004.
7 Berenson, “A Boom Built Upon Sand, Gone Bust.”
12 “Marking to Myth,”
Fortune, September 3, 2007.
13 Berenson, “A Boom Built Upon Sand, Gone Bust.”
16 Shawn Tully, “A Deal Too Far,”
Fortune, November 8, 1999.
18 Berenson, “A Boom Built Upon Sand, Gone Bust.”
20 Jonathan Weill and Cassell Bryan-Low, “Report Bolsters SEC’s Proposal for Attorneys,”
Wall Street Journal, September 15, 2003.
21 Larry O’Dell, “Furniture Giant Files for Bankruptcy, Announces Closings, Job Cuts,” Associated Press, August 16, 2000.
22 Indraneel Sur, “Heilig-Meyers to Close All of Its California Stores,”
Los Angeles Times, August 17, 2000.
23 O’Dell, “Furniture Giant Files for Bankruptcy.”
24 Robert F. Bruner and Kenneth M. Eades, “The Crash of the Revco Leveraged Buyout,”
Financial Management, Spring 1992.
27 Charles W. Mulford and Eugene Comiskey,
The Financial Numbers Game: Detecting Creative Accounting Practices (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2002).
28 Elizabeth MacDonald, “Show Me the Money,”
Forbes.com, June 4, 2007.
29 Elizabeth MacDonald, “How to Really Hate Your Auditor,”
Forbes.com, May 5, 2003.
32 Nick Ravo, “Leonard S. Shoen, 83, Founder of U-Haul, the Trailer Company,”
New York Times, October 7, 1999.
33 Mulford and Comiskey,
The Financial Numbers Game. 34 Eric Young, “The Highs and Lows of Being a CEO,”
Chief Executive, August 1, 2001.
35 William C. Symonds, “Behind Tyco’s Accounting Alchemy,”
BusinessWeek, February 25, 2002.
36 Warren Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway annual report for 1989, chairman’s letter.
1 Edward O. Welles, “Roll Your Own,”
Inc., February 2001.
2 Guy Dixon, “We Bought the Wrong Company. It Took Us Two Years to Admit It,”
Scotland on Sunday, September 11, 2005.
3 Bernard Condon, “Jon Ledecky Predicts . . . ,”
Forbes.com, October 5, 1998.
4 The Loewen Group Incorporated and Raymond L. Loewen vs. the United States of America, Joint Reply of Claimants the Loewen Group Incorporated and Raymond L. Loewen to the Counter-Memorial of the United States, filed June 8, 2001, with the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.
5 Erik Larson, “Fight to the Death,”
Time, December 9, 1996.
6 Opinion by the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes in The Proceeding Between the Loewen Group Incorporated and Raymond L. Loewen (Claimants) and United States of America (Respondent), June 26, 2003.
7 Stuart Gilson,
Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2001).
12 Jones, “Canadian Corporate Predator.”
13 Gilson,
Creating Value Through Corporate Restructuring. 14 Ian Giddy, “The Restructuring of the Loewen Group,” case study, New York University.
15 Bolaji Ojo, “Remaking a Champion,”
Electronics Supply & Manufacturing, May 1, 2006.
16 Paul F. Kocourek, Steven Y. Chung, and Matthew G. McKenna, “Strategic Rollups: Overhauling the Multi-Merger Machine,”
Strategy & Business, second quarter 2000.
1 Gary Hamel and Liisa Valikangas, “The Quest for Resilience,”
Harvard Business Review, September 2003.
2 Geoffrey Smith, “Can George Fisher Fix Kodak?”
BusinessWeek, October 20, 1997.
3 Claudia H. Deutsch, “Chief Says Kodak Is Pointed in the Right Direction,”
New York Times, December 25, 1999.
5 Bruce Upbin, “Kodak’s Digital Moment,”
Forbes, August 21, 2000.
7 “Eastman Kodak Co. (Interview with Daniel A. Carp, President and CEO),”
Photo Marketing, March 1, 2003.
9 Nielsen SoundScan Report, January 4, 2008.
10 Patricia Callahan and Ann Zimmerman, “Wa l-Mart, After Remaking Discount Retailing, Now Nation’s Largest Grocery Chain,”
Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2003.
11 Staci D. Kramer, “Content’s King,”
Cableworld, April 29, 2002.
12 Mary Benner, “Securities Analysts and Incumbent Response to Radical Technology Change: The Case of Digital Technology in Photography,” Wharton School research paper, February 25, 2007.
13 Jennifer Reingold, “MobileMedia: Anatomy of a Bankruptcy,”
BusinessWeek, May 17, 1997.
15 Leslie Brokaw, “Flexible Fliers,”
Inc., December 1995.
18 Michael Porter,
On Competition (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1998).
1 Chris Zook,
Beyond the Core (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2004).
2 George S. Day, “Which Way Should You Grow,”
Harvard Business Review, July-August, 2004.
5 Thomas W. Gerdel, “Oglebay Norton on a New Course,”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, December 29, 1996.
7 M. R. Kropko, “Chief Executive Works Without Salary,” Associated Press, September 6, 1998.
8 Frank Lewis, “The Wreck of the Oglebay Norton,”
Cleveland Scene, September 22, 2004.
12 Bill Brubaker, “FLYi Says Older Carriers Played Tough,”
Washington Post, November 9, 2005.
13 Bill Brubaker, “FLYi is Latest Airline in Bankruptcy Protection,”
Washington Post, November 8, 2005.
14 Howard Rudnitsky, “World’s Largest Up and Comer,”
Forbes, May 18, 1987.
15 Anthony Bianco and Pamela L. Moore, “Xerox: The Downfall,”
BusinessWeek, March 5, 2001.
16 Julie Johnsson, “Dealmakers Sue Ex-Employer Comdisco,” Crain Communications Incorporated, June 9, 2003.
18 Paul Bagnell, “Laidlaw’s Rough Ride,”
Financial Post, September 25, 1999.
19 Timothy Pritchard, “Treacherous Stretch for a Busing Leader,”
New York Times, October 29, 2000.
20 Larry Light, “Halt! You May Owe the IRS $500 Million,”
BusinessWeek, September 14, 1998.
21 John Crudele, “FPL Group in Deal for Colonial Penn,”
New York Times, October 26, 1985.
22 Lee A. Daniels, “Utilities Are Branching Out,”
New York Times, February 19, 1987.
24 Constantinos C. Markides,
All the Right Moves (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2000).
1 Howard Wolinsky, “Why Motorola Will Sell Iridium,”
Chicago Sun-Times, August 13, 1999.
2 Robert W. Galvin, “Real Leaders Create Industries,”
Research-Technology Management, November/December, 1995.
4 “Make Room for Motorola,”
Mobile Phone News, November 21, 1991.
5 “Beam Me Up, Scottie,”
Economist, March 28, 1992.
6 Ronald E. Yates, “Motorola Phone Satellite Project Picking Up Static,” Chicago Tribune, August 10, 1992.
7 Yates, “Motorola Phone Satellite Project Picking Up Static.”
8 Brian S. Moskal, “Iridium Inc.,”
Industry Week, December 19, 1994.
9 Adam Lashinsky, “Dial Iridium to Anywhere,”
Crain’s Chicago Business, December 11, 1995.
10 Roger O. Crockett, “Why Motorola Should Hang Up on Iridium,”
BusinessWeek, August 30, 1999.
11 Statutory Committee of Unsecured Creditors v. Motorola, Inc., Case No. 99-45005 (JMP), United States Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of New York, 2007.
13 Sydney Finkelstein and Shade H. Sanford, “Learning from Corporate Mistakes: The Rise and Fall of Iridium,”
Organizational Dynamics, November 2000.
14 John Van, “Hang-ups for Iridium Phone Firm,”
Chicago Tribune, April 1, 1999.
15 Andrew Zajac, “Iridium: Pie in the Sky?”
Chicago Tribune, June 14, 1998.
16 Nancy Gohring, “Iridium Tests Its Wings,” Telephony Online, November 2, 1998.
17 Finkelstein and Sanford, “Learning from Corporate Mistakes.”
18 Peter W. Barnes, “Zapmail May Become Passe,”
New York Times, August 24, 1984.
19 Clay Shirky, “Customer-Owned Networks: ZapMail and the Telecommunications Industry,” NEC @shirky.com, 2003.
20 Howard Anderson, “Iridium’s Demise: A Case of Misreading the Market,”
Computer-World, October 4, 2000.
21 Western Union memo, 1876.
22 Wikipedia entry for Thomas Watson, Sr.
23 Smart Computing Encyclopedia entry for Kenneth H. Olsen.
24 Paul Carroll,
Big Blues: The Unmaking of IBM (New York: Crown, 1993).
26 Joelle Tessler, “An Inside View of Webvan,”
San Jose Mercury News, December 16, 2001.
27 Jorge Rufat-Latre, “What Killed Webvan was Bricks, not Clicks,”
Chicago Tribune, July 18, 2001.
28 Ariane Sains and Stanley Reed, “Electrolux Redesigns Itself,”
BusinessWeek, November 27, 2006.
1 Graeme Deans, “Mastering Industry Consolidation: Strategies for Winning the Merger Endgame,”
Ivey Business Journal, July/August 2003.
2 Gary Hamel,
Leading the Revolution (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2002).
3 “Herbert Gilman of Ames Dead at 65,”
Discount Store News, August 6, 1990.
4 Peter Hisey, “Herb Gilman: The Concept Is So Simple,”
Discount Store News, May 23, 1988.
7 Peter Hisey, “Emphasis on Higher Margins Helps Ames Climb Into Black,”
Discount Store News, April 18, 1994.
8 Ames Department Stores 10-K filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, January 28, 1996.
9 Tony Lisanti, “Dr. Pistner’s Vision Takes Shape at Ames,”
Discount Store News, June 17, 1991.
10 “800-lb. Gorilla Puts Chain in Chapter 11,”
Discount Store News, April 2000.
11 Gerri Wills, “Taking Ames at Wal-Mart,”
SmartMoney, September 29, 1997.
12 Steven N. Kaplan,
Mergers and Productivity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000).
13 “Down to Earth: For Piedmont Airlines, Its 1989 ‘Merger of Equals’ with USAir Was More Like a Funeral Than a Wedding,”
Business North Carolina, August 1, 2006.
14 Saul Hansell, “Seagate: Missed the iPod but Selling to Lots of Snoops,”
New York Times, September 10, 2007.
1 Richard J. Heuer Jr.,
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis (Government Printing Office, 1999).
2 Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable (New York: Random House, 2007).
3 Phil Rosenzweig,
The Halo Effect . . . and the Eight Other Business Delusions That Deceive Managers (New York: Free Press, 2007).
4 Heuer,
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. 5 Interview with Alan Kay, March 8, 2008.
6 Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets (New York: Random House, 2004).
8 Peter L. Bernstein,
Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1996).
9 Interview with Jim Barksdale, March 7, 1996.
10 Heuer,
Psychology of Intelligence Analysis. 13 Sydney Finkelstein,
Why Smart Executives Fail: And What You Can Learn from Their Mistakes (New York: Penguin Books, 2003).
14 Ian I. Mitroff,
The Subjective Side of Science (Salinas, CA: Intersystems Publications, 1983).
15 James W. Kalat,
Introduction to Psychology (Belmont, CA: Thomson Wadsworth, 2005).
16 Wikipedia entry for the Milgram experiment.
17 Rich Karlgaard, “Peter Drucker on Leadership,”
Forbes.com, November 19, 2004.
18 Taleb,
The Black Swan. 21 Charles Perrow,
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
22 Chris Argyris, “Teaching Smart People How to Learn,”
Harvard Business Review, May- June 1991.
23 Charles R. Schwenk,
The Essence of Strategic Decision Making (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 1988).
24 Jeffrey Pfeffer and Robert I. Sutton,
Hard Facts, Dangerous Half-Truths, and Total Nonsense: Profiting from Evidence-Based Management (Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 2006).
1 Flora Guidry, Andrew Leone, and Steven Rock, “Earnings-Based Bonus Plans and Earnings Management by Business-Unit Managers,”
Journal of Accounting and Economics, Volume 26, 1999.
2 Interview with Marvin Zonis, February 26, 2008.
3 Schwenk,
The Essence of Strategic Decision Making. 4 Interview with Marvin Zonis.
5 Finkelstein,
Why Smart Executives Fail. 7 James Surowiecki,
The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economics, Societies, and Nations (New York: Doubleday, 2004).
9 Dietrich Dorner,
The Logic of Failure: Recognizing and Avoiding Error in Complex Situations (New York: Basic Books, 1997).
10 Wikipedia entry for Ford Pinto.
11 “The Gift of Prophecy,”
Economist, March 1, 2003.
12 “Study Finds Nearly 200,000 Deaths Annually from Hospital Errors,”
consumeraffairs.com, August 12, 2004.
13 Perrow,
Normal Accidents. 2 Finkelstein,
Why Smart Executives Fail. 3 Edward de Bono,
Six Thinking Hats (New York: Penguin Books, 1990).
4 Interview with David Pottruck, March 3, 2008.
6 Berkshire Hathaway annual report, chairman’s letter, 1989.
7 Alex Rovira and Fernando Trias de Bes, “Do Entrepreneurs Need Good Luck?” About .com, viewed April 18, 2008.
9 Jay W. Hopman, “Using Forecasting Markets to Manage Demand Risk,”
Intel Technology Journal, May 16, 2007.
10 Otto Friedrich, “Day of Infamy,”
Time, December 2, 1991.
11 William Stearns Davis, “Herodotus on the Customs of the Persians,”
parstimes.com, viewed April 18, 2008.
12 Geoffrey Cullinan, Jean-Marc Le Roux, and Rolf-Magnus Weddigen, “When to Walk Away from a Deal,”
Harvard Business Review, April 2004.
13 Bruce Nolop, “Rules to Acquire By,”
Harvard Business Review, September 2007.
1 Clayton Christensen, Stephen P. Kaufman, and Willy C. Shih, “Innovation Killers: How Financial Tools Destroy Your Capacity to Do New Things,”
Harvard Business Review, January 2008.
2 Nolop, “Rules to Acquire By.”
3 Rita Gunther McGrath and Ian C. MacMillan, “Discovery-Driven Planning,”
Harvard Business Review, July-August 1995.
