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    Corporate Canaries: Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner's Secrets
    Corporate Canaries: Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner's Secrets
    Corporate Canaries: Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner's Secrets
    Ebook114 pages2 hours

    Corporate Canaries: Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner's Secrets

    By Gary Sutton

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    About this ebook

    In today's tumultuous business environment, managers want guidance in the form of a timely theme, a unique and memorable metaphor, and outside-the-box thinking. That's precisely what Corporate Canaries delivers. The book features five core chapters revealing five common business hazards, and each lesson is accompanied by a story based on the author's grandfather's work in the coal industry, as well as an applicable "canary warning" for each theme.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThomas Nelson
    Release dateMay 27, 2007
    ISBN9781418525989
    Author

    Gary Sutton

    Gary Sutton is a vice president for a leading financial services company. He has built and led high-performing business intelligence and analytics organizations across multiple verticals, where R was the preferred programming language for predictive modeling, statistical analyses, and other quantitative insights. Gary earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Southern California, a Masters from George Washington University, and a second Masters in Data Science, from Northwestern University.

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      Book preview

      Corporate Canaries - Gary Sutton

      PRAISE FOR

      CORPORATE Canaries

      If managers could read only one book, this should be it.

      —Bob Bartley

      Editor, Wall Street Journal

      Pulitzer Prize Winner

      Presidential Medal of Freedom

      What a read! I was gripped for two hours, reliving every mistake I ever made in business.

      —Jean Farinelli

      Chairwoman, Creamer Dickson Basford

      COO, Zagat Survey

      If managers hear these ‘canary chirps,’ we won’t suffer any more Enron or Tyco debacles.

      —John Schaefer

      Former CEO and Staff Assistant to the President of the

      United States

      These secrets work for small business too!

      —Janet Meaker

      Owner, ProMarketing Associates

      Winning takes defense and offense. Too many business books only talk about offense. Gary Sutton solved that with these lessons.

      —Craig McCaw

      Pioneer to the mobile phone industry, multi-billionaire

      "The trick through business ups and downs is maintaining morale and acting rationally. Corporate Canaries shows how."

      —Martha Demski

      Vice President and CFO, Vical, Retired

      I’ve known Gary Sutton since he was a wee PR guy chasing a hot air balloon across the country. There was nothing, other than his sense of humor and a tendency to see the world a bit more keenly than the rest of us, that suggested he would enjoy such a varied, successful career as a turnaround CEO. But we didn’t know about his Grandpa Sutton and the business lessons learned in the depths of the coal mines. Grandpa Sutton would be proud of his grandson’s ability to translate the ‘canary’ wisdoms into a successful career and share those secrets.

      —John Norris

      Chairman, Lennox Industries

      Riveting stories with plain talk . . . solid advice on how to strengthen your company from a guy who’s been there a dozen times.

      —Mary Curran

      Vice President, Union Bank

      The ultimate book on business has been written and cleverly packaged. Gary Sutton is straightforward and to the point. He gives advice we can use immediately in a memorable fashion. These ‘canary’ lessons are seen in many companies. Gary helps us recognize and act on them, instead of relearning each time. Leave copies around your office, and see what happens.

      —Giles Bateman

      Cofounder, Price Club, now Costco

      Former Chairman, CompUSA

      (and serial survivor of multiple company crashes)

      There were moments when I forgot a ‘canary,’ and it cost me each time. Sutton’s book gives great advice, not just on how to build business, but how to make it profitable. There’s a difference. This is a critical guide.

      —Bob Evans

      CEO and Managing Editor, Sierra Heritage Magazine

      Fun reading. Management 101 yet better than an MBA. This reveals business truths. Super book.

      —John Hanson

      CEO, Winnebago Industries (retired)

      "Simple. Insightful. Useful. Gary Sutton’s Corporate Canaries gives entrepreneurs and managers pithy, practical, and applicable advice for avoiding catastrophes. His tactical directions bespeak the wisdom of running many startups and turnarounds."

      —John Otterson

      Managing Director, Silicon Valley Bank

      The ‘canaries’ are profound. These tales reveal everything managers must know.

      —Don Drobny

      Former Division President, EDS

      Cofounder, Perot Systems

      Good stuff ! For the ambitious, the ‘Corporate Canaries’ will boost careers.

      —Larry Schreiber

      Former Vice President, RJ Reynolds (retired)

      I love the grandpa stories and lessons. This book is splendid.

      —Tom Murphy

      Venture Capitalist

      Former Fortune and Forbes Columnist

      These corporate canaries are treasures. What struck me is how much they apply to my business.

      —Tiffany Smith

      Vice President, Bernstein Investment Research &

      Management

      Absolutely key to business (and life).

      —Carl Vanderwilt

      Former CFO and Vice President, Federal Reserve Bank

      I’ve owned private businesses and run a not-for-profit. The basics in here work for both.

      —Allan Shaw

      Executive Director, MS Society

      Title page with Thomas Nelson logo

      Copyright © 2005 by Gary Sutton

      All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or other—except for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without prior written permission of the publisher.

      Published in Nashville, Tennessee. Thomas Nelson is a trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

      Thomas Nelson, Inc. titles may be purchased in bulk for educational, business, fund-raising, or sales promotional use. For information, please e-mail SpecialMarkets@ThomasNelson.com.

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Sutton, Gary.

      Corporate canaries : avoid business disasters with a coal miner’s secrets / Gary Sutton.

      p. cm.

      ISBN 13: 978-0-7852-1299-7 (hardcover)

      ISBN 10: 0-7852-1299-X (hardcover)

      ISBN 13: 978-0-7852-8849-7 (tradepaper)

      ISBN 10: 0-7852-8849-X (tradepaper)

      1. Success in business. 2. Business failures—Prevention.

      3. Coal mines and mining—Management—Case studies.

      I. Title.

      HF5386.S894 2005

      657.4'03—dc22

      2005021007

      07 08 09 10 11 RRD 5 4 3 2 1

      Information about External Hyperlinks in this ebook

      Please note that footnotes in this ebook may contain hyperlinks to external websites as part of bibliographic citations. These hyperlinks have not been activated by the publisher, who cannot verify the accuracy of these links beyond the date of publication.

      To my canary, Nancy

      CONTENTS

      Introduction

      1. You Can’t Outgrow Losses

      2. Debt’s a Killer

      3. Fools Fly Blind

      4. Any Decision Beats No Decision

      5. Markets Grow and Markets Die

      6. The Big Lesson, Some Universal Truths, and What Managers Can and Cannot Do

      Thank You! Thank You!

      About the Author

      INTRODUCTION

      DUCKING CATASTROPHE is key to success.

      Book after book tells how to romance customers and build a business. Speaker after speaker inspires listeners to higher performance, better service, and smarter strategies.

      But none of that matters when you’re bleeding.

      Avoiding tragedies saves energy. When you save energy, then, and only then, boosting performance and improving service and developing effective strategies become possible.

      By the way, a disaster is headed toward your company right now, only to be followed by another. That’s business. That’s life. Corporate Canaries helps you detect these threats.

      Do not buy this book if you’re the CEO. Anybody who’s made it that far understands these tales. (We hope.) If you’re a self-confident CEO, however, you might hand out copies to your team. These managers will learn more about business than you could teach by example in years. I promise you that.

      In fact, this may be the first book with a guarantee.

      This book will help managers detect a serious business problem, either in your company or in a competitor’s, within a year of reading. If not, I will return your money plus a dollar.

      Just write me at the publisher, within three years of the copyright. I expect a teeny handful of letters since these five lessons have been proven again and again and again.

      So just what are corporate canaries?

      A century ago coal miners hung canary cages in their tunnels. The little birds went silent and dropped when poison gas seeped into the mine, before any miners were hurt, saving lives. It’s the same with these corporate canaries, which tell you when a business is threatened.

      Before reading Corporate Canaries, you might like to know where I came from.

      My first CEO job was running US Press in 1980. I had no prior experience in printing. The investors suspected there was some untapped potential in their business, they hired me, and by golly, we went from $10 million in revenues to $100 million in six years. This growth was

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