- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: HarperCollins Business (8 July 1996)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0002556138
- ISBN-13: 978-0002556132
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15.6 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 719,039 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
The Fish Rots From The Head
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Product Description
Review
'An important contribution to the corporate governance debate and clear and intelligent advice on how to improve the performance of a board' - Tim Melville-Ross, Institute of Directors
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Review
'No director can afford to ignore this book' Sir Adrian Cadbury 'This book helps directors strike the essential balance between directing and managing' Sir Adrian Cadbury 'Garratt has a gift for synthesizing things in a beautifully clear and succinct way' Charles Handy.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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First Sentence
The board of directors role came to the forefront of corporate life surprisingly early, one of the first examples being the formation of the East India Company in 1601. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
The board of directors role came to the forefront of corporate life surprisingly early, one of the first examples being the formation of the East India Company in 1601. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Is corporate governance in crisis? Look no further than the front page of your newspaper. You'll see a plethora of grubby stories concerning greedy CEOs, negligent boards, irate shareholders, downsized employees, cheated pension holders and ripped-off customers. Meanwhile, government regulators sharpen their claws and get ready to pounce. The public has become increasingly angry and cynical about corporate ethics, as the "perp walks" of pinstriped malefactors have become a nightly TV spectacle. Since it is directors who should ensure corporate accountability, transparency and probity - virtues sadly lacking in many boardrooms - directors are catching the heat. Bob Garratt insists that to clean things up, you must begin at the top. His insightful book details why boards have deteriorated and how they can improve. The title, a Chinese proverb, is an apt metaphor for the malodorous results of the governance mess. We recommend Garratt's informed exposé to corporate executives and board members who seek a thoughtful prescription for meaningful change.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For some reason my expectations were quite high when I opened this book but I have to give it three stars only.
I was slightly irritated by the author's sense of superiority and self satisfaction, but that's not really a good reason for knocking stars off. The proper reasons were these:
1) A certain lack of intellectual rigour
For example, "For organizations to survive and grow, their rate of learning has to be equal to, or greater than, the rate of change in their environment. Revan's axiom - L >= C - is an essential of organizational ecology. It is easy to state, easy to agree with,..."
But, of course, it is not easy to agree to something that is, literally, nonsense. How are these measured? How can they be compared?
This is symptomatic of the logical slips that appear often in this book, weakening the arguments.
2) Its vision of how duties are divided between the board and management
One of the fundamental ideas in the book is the 'learning board', which sounded good at first, and yet the more I read the more worried I was by the details. In this book the board's role is to set policies about what the organization is for and, broadly, how resources are deployed. It is to look outward and forward in time. Management are to be much more inwardly focused, looking at implementation, and responding to deviations from plans. They are to develop systems that are effective for customers.
Actually getting to the bottom of what the author is saying was not easy and probably there are remarks in the book that contradict the impression I got and the summary in this review. Having said that, I thought it sounded like the process remained primarily top down, despite the 'double loop' model, and that uncertainties about what strategies were feasible were underplayed and not adequately dealt with. The possibility of strategies emerging from successful experience and experiments was not given enough attention.
For some good reading on this try Ries and Trout's "Bottom Up Strategy" or the more recent "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" by Richard Rumelt.
So, overall, a bit disappointing for a book in its 3rd edition.
I was slightly irritated by the author's sense of superiority and self satisfaction, but that's not really a good reason for knocking stars off. The proper reasons were these:
1) A certain lack of intellectual rigour
For example, "For organizations to survive and grow, their rate of learning has to be equal to, or greater than, the rate of change in their environment. Revan's axiom - L >= C - is an essential of organizational ecology. It is easy to state, easy to agree with,..."
But, of course, it is not easy to agree to something that is, literally, nonsense. How are these measured? How can they be compared?
This is symptomatic of the logical slips that appear often in this book, weakening the arguments.
2) Its vision of how duties are divided between the board and management
One of the fundamental ideas in the book is the 'learning board', which sounded good at first, and yet the more I read the more worried I was by the details. In this book the board's role is to set policies about what the organization is for and, broadly, how resources are deployed. It is to look outward and forward in time. Management are to be much more inwardly focused, looking at implementation, and responding to deviations from plans. They are to develop systems that are effective for customers.
Actually getting to the bottom of what the author is saying was not easy and probably there are remarks in the book that contradict the impression I got and the summary in this review. Having said that, I thought it sounded like the process remained primarily top down, despite the 'double loop' model, and that uncertainties about what strategies were feasible were underplayed and not adequately dealt with. The possibility of strategies emerging from successful experience and experiments was not given enough attention.
For some good reading on this try Ries and Trout's "Bottom Up Strategy" or the more recent "Good Strategy, Bad Strategy" by Richard Rumelt.
So, overall, a bit disappointing for a book in its 3rd edition.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
3 reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
A Must-Read for Corporate America
29 Sep 2002
Format:Hardcover
Bob Garratt's "The Fish Rots..." for me is a first-of-a-kind kind of book. While tons and tons of management books deluge us every day this particular book stands out by expertly handling a somewhat "uncharted" territory. A territory that ordinary mortals like the majority of us have not much inkling on...on what really transpires (or what SHOULD transpire)in those subduedly-lighted, eerily silent, wood-paneled top-floor suites of corporate HQ reserved for the Board, accessible only by a non-stop key-driven elevator. The book struck my interest deeply that it inspired me to recommend it to our Business Intelligence group to develop an information system on that will support The Learning Board's four directoral dilemmas as vividly treated in Mr. Garrat's book. All these years we spoke of and endlessly developed and maintained management information systems. I reckon that we should now look at developing a Board information system using BI, data warehousing, management science techniques, external monitoring systems and so on. With the crisis of confidence in Corporate America brought about by the boards of Enron, WorldCom, etc I believe such system will help "clean up" the mess and bring back the past glory days of American corporations. Kudos to Mr. Garratt for an excellent book !!!
A sensible prescription for fixing corporate boards
26 Jun 2007
Format:Paperback
Is corporate governance in crisis? Look no further than the front page of your newspaper. You'll see a plethora of grubby stories concerning greedy CEOs, negligent boards, irate shareholders, downsized employees, cheated pension holders and ripped-off customers. Meanwhile, government regulators sharpen their claws and get ready to pounce. The public has become increasingly angry and cynical about corporate ethics, as the "perp walks" of pinstriped malefactors have become a nightly TV spectacle. Since it is directors who should ensure corporate accountability, transparency and probity - virtues sadly lacking in many boardrooms - directors are catching the heat. Bob Garratt insists that to clean things up, you must begin at the top. His insightful book details why boards have deteriorated and how they can improve. The title, a Chinese proverb, is an apt metaphor for the malodorous results of the governance mess. We recommend Garratt's informed exposé to corporate executives and board members who seek a thoughtful prescription for meaningful change.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Corporate Skill Development to Avoid Head Rot
6 July 2001
Format:Paperback
Mr. Garratt does not pull his punches! Swinging from the start, Garratt lights the fire under the Director's seats causing screams that delight those who work for them. Enjoyable reading that motivates contemplation and further discussion at the corporate level.
While focused in Great Britain, Garratt sites examples from around the globe that make it easy to picture and apply. Used as a learning and teaching tool (this should be a textbook), "The Fish Rots from the Head" is a natural with a great deal of down-to-earth common sense. This should be required reading by directors in the board room, thoroughly discussed in staff meetings, and shared sincerely with all employees.
If directors of the world read, understood, and applied Bob Garratt's message, we wouldn't call it work!
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