Synopses & Reviews
A Family Business prospers through a productive series of brutal consolidations and rational growth. Then the rise of an executive class that pits one ego-tistical senior manager against another in senseless internal conflicts eventually leads to a long line of demented CEO's, excessive expansion, and foolish diversification--and a high cost in shattered lives. In the end, a series of reverse takeovers leave the once-proud but now overextended and corrupt parent company at the mercy of the mom-and-pop operations that previously cringed at the grandeur of the corporate brand. Enron? WorldCom? Try Rome, whose rise and fall carry a moral that lingers to this day for the managers, employees, and students of any global enterprise. Stanley Bing--whose satirical business books are as savagely funny as they are insightful--mingles business parable and cautionary tale into an ingenious, often hilarious new telling of the story of the Roman Empire.