“The Worship of Mammon” (painting) by Evelyn De Morgan, painted in 1909.
Mr. Witzel talks about the seven deadly sins of management — arrogance, ignorance, fear, greed, lust, linear thinking and lack of purpose. And he really does mean “deadly” since these sins can kill organizations.
He gives rich examples — most noteworthy the rapid ascent and slow decline of Ford, after Henry Ford succumbed to hubris and greed, and the cataclysmic collapse of Lehman Bros. in 2008, which led immediately to the Great Recession.
His book’s makes it clear that many disasters don’t result from a single decision or a single bad leader but from years in which the seven sins poison corporate cultures.
