This statement is the key message in a crucial publication in HBR in June 2016, about the extremely expensive mistakes in M&A, which seem to be unstoppable! This has been going on for 40-50 years!
The above is one of the testimonials concerning our Master Class held in Tel Aviv, Israel, in 2016 with 45 business professionals attending from a wide variety of industry sectors. It was a real challenge for us to work with these Israeli professionals in what is seen as the “cradle of the most advanced intelligence practices in the world”. Our host was the Israel Export Institute.
Narcissism is widespread at the top in both private and public companies as well as in non-profit organizations and the public sector. Narcissism is a necessary element for effective leadership, but it can, however, also become a negative trait. So we may therefore speak about positive and destructive narcissism. Examples to be emulated are Steve Jobs (Apple), Michael Eisner (Walt Disney), Jack Welch (GE), Ingvard Kamprad (IKEA), Henri Ford (Ford Motor Company), Freddie Heineken (Heineken) and Richard Branson (Virgin).
In the fall of 2015, we published our book “Big Boys Big Egos and Strategic Intelligence”, the fifth book in a row on business-, competitive- and strategic intelligence since 2000. Scientific research on narcissism lies at the basis of this book, which is based on a sample of 950 CEOs of the S&P top-500 companies during the period 1992-2009.
In 2015, a high-technological corporation in the Netherlands, Royal Imtech, with some 22,000 employees, active in infrastructure, building & construction, maintenance & control, ran into financial trouble. The main causes of this bankruptcy were the inflated egos of the former CEO and CFO, who had both held positions from 2002 till February 2013, acting like ‘sun-kings’, and a lack of monitoring and control.