Stall Points - Most Companies Stop Growing, Yours Don't Have to - A Critical Book Review

Stall Points is an essential business book which is functionally valuable to companies of all sizes as well as students of business. Growth stalls are inevitable for most corporations. The length of the stall and the effect of the stall varies from one organization to the next. Strategic solutions are essential but must be used in an adaptive way – continually articulated and stress-tested to prove their current viability instead of being applied broadly and without continuous assessment of the results.

A Brief Description:

Matthew and Derek outlines multiple reasons why the growth of a corporation stall. They contributed the stall to be within the control of corporations’ management. Here are the 4 most common reasons:

1. Failure to be responsive to competition and customers


2. Failure to be productively innovative


3. Failure to exploit their core strengths or adapt to competitive challenges


4. Failure to find, nurture and implement new talent

Here are just 3 of the many refreshing solutions offered by Matthew and Derek:

1. Test hard-core, ingrained assumptions


2. Write a 5 year map projection of why the company will succeed and why it will fail – a real eye opener


3. Allow an authoritative team to propose alternative solutions/strategies and identify red-flags

A Critical Analysis:

Strengths of Stall Points

1. Authoritative -The authors have conducted a rigorous analysis of all companies represented in the Fortune 100 over the past 50 years
2. Informative – The problems were identified and practical ‘how-to’ solutions proposed.
3. Objective – Hard data is presented without speculation.
4. Style of writing – Matthew and Derek write in a witty and informative manner. It is not technically boring nor superficially flimsy for the purpose of entertaining the reader

Weaknesses of Stall Points

The reason why corporations stall is not explained adequately. It’s hard to accept the conclusion that most of the corporations that stop growing may contribute the stunt in growth to complacency and incompetence of management. It’s a reasoning that seems to simplified in the light of the complexities of small to mid-size corporations.

The Evaluation:

A particular point of interest is the Litmus Test provided at the end of the book. The Litmus Test is a 50 question red-flag diagnostic test is provided for the reader to conduct a company evaluation.

Most companies can easily integrate these 5 recommendations of Matthew and Derek:

1. Build consensus about the sources of weakness
2. Acknowledge model challenges
3. Identify changes needed in the core business model
4. Identify new business models to be integrated
5. Allow opportunities of growth

I find the underlying messages of the recommendations of Matthew and Derek to be classical, and time-tested truths.

Summary:

Whether the renewal process of a company is over a long period of time or a short period of time, Stalling Points reminds business leaders of the potential for renewal.

Stall Points - Most Companies Stop Growing, Yours Don't Have to - A Critical Book Review