Who Blunders and How? by Robin Banerjee

Title: Who Blunders and How?

Author: Robin Banerjee

Publisher: Sage Publications

Genre: Business, Strategy & Management

First Publication: 2019

Language: English

Book Summary: Who Blunders and How? by Robin Banerjee

Many big companies—famous brands, once loved and revered—often disappear into oblivion mainly due to their own follies. Look at the once invincible Kodak or the seemingly unfailing Premier Padmini cars. In the unforgiving world of modern business they failed to adapt, only to perish. Many businesses fail to address this basic truth.

Every business is tested for endurance and accomplishment but only a few extract strength and wisdom from their trying experiences. Even the infallible Nokia, BlackBerry, Woolworths and Lehman Brothers buckled. Companies such as Bethlehem Steel, Atari, Xerox, NCR, Mafatlal and Kingfisher Airlines once considered as the great ones to emulate, all failed to live up to their repute.

Instances of business blunders and bloopers are many. They could include compromising quality to cut costs, lack of professionalism in management, botched up mergers and acquisitions, customers being taken for granted, bad leadership, family squabbles, corporate fraud, unmanageable debts and numerous others.

Who Blunders and How? by Robin Banerjee will help you understand many famous, frequent and common mistakes committed by businesses over time. The lessons learnt should enable you to run your businesses with lesser hiccups and maximize stakeholder return.

Book Review: Who Blunders and How? by Robin Banerjee

I thought this would be a quick read but I was wrong. It took me almost three weeks to read it. It took so long because I needed to digest what I was reading and then self reflect. The benefits are amazing. I now look at employment, employers and what to look for as a company expands in totally different ways.

This book, Who Blunders and How? by Robin Banerjee,  is ideal for new founders just starting up a company as well as senior leaders who lead others. The author did a good job capturing how to transform failure and adversity into success. This is a good “lesson learned” and “self help” type business book that one would go back to read when faced with similar perceived failures in their career. I think it could also be used as a reference for those who conduct business and development training.

“Who Blunders and How?” is a fantastic book full of wonderful advice from detailed research along with some great anecdotes unique to this book. Robin Banerjee covers lots of ground over many topics and at times it feels like a best hits of legendary business development books. Among other books aimed at describing what’s necessary for success in life, this one felt both entertaining and thought-provoking. As such it has a lot going for it. It’s main strength lies in concisely comparing both sides of an issue, throwing in a few antidotes to keep your interest, and then seeking a synthesis or paradigm shift on the topic.

This book is well-researched and backed up by a lot of examples. I honestly found valuable takeaways and actionable insights to adjust my behavior in every chapter. I was expecting a lot of redundancy, yet due to its structure, this book was devoid of much fluff. It was a real page-turner and quite the interesting read!

Who Blunders and How? by Robin Banerjee is a really refreshing book. Rather than providing tools and tricks to manage your time just slightly better than you usually can, the book seeks to actively transform your perspective about what success and time management are entirely.