One of the best and most readable cases about organisational change and resilience – “Transforming Nokia: The Power of Paranoid Optimism to Lead Through Colossal Change”. This is the story of Nokia’s collapse from the mobile phone market’s gargantuan leader to its refocus and recovery as a leading global technology company. Nokia’s chairman Risto Siilasmaa shares a very candid and personal tale of “nothing fails like success”. The key message is that optimism, in the absence of other resilience characteristics, can suppress bad news and filter truth to toxic levels. If your organisation is successful, this is a must-read book to ensure you avoid the disaster that is an ‘optimism alone’ mindset. As Andy Grove, the late CEO of Intel, once said “only the paranoid survive”. Make sure your optimism is balanced by all the other resilience factors, such as proactive risk taking e.g. seeing the truth and speaking it.

%d bloggers like this: