Firing Back: How Great Leaders Rebound After Career Disasters

by Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward

Book Overview

Is it possible to rescue your career and restore your reputation after a major professional setback? In an age when we're bombarded with press accounts of disgraced CEOs, politicians, and celebrities, this question is more important than ever. In Firing Back, Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward lay out a novel five-step recovery process: "Fight, not flight" (face the difficult situation), "Recruit others into battle" (enlist the right assistance),...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1591393019
• ISBN13: 9781591393016
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Harvard Business Review Press
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 1.40 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

Another great read from Sonnenfeld

I am very pleased to be able to recommend this excellent book. I am an admitted fan of Dr. Sonnenfeld, and both loved and recommended his earlier work on CEO's, "The Hero's Farewell", to collegues, friends, and family. It was with much excitement that I purchased this new work, and my excitement was not misplaced. With his new writing partner Andrew Ward, Dr. Sonnenfeld has managed to take a large number of fairly academic concepts and make them entirely accessable. Much more than some dusty scholarly treatment, the book reads like the best of the popular business best sellers, captivating the reader. It is engaging in both intellectual and emotional planes. The area of CEO leadership is one in which Dr. Sonnenfeld is unquestionably one of the global experts, and with this book he helps to distill his huge breadth of knowledge into a tonic that we can all absorb. I found this to be an excellent and informative read. Congratulations to both Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward for their first rate and accessable work.

Rx: give it to a young manager

A profound study of CEO career setbacks and comebacks. As we are all CEOs of our own lives, there is no one who wouldn't profit from a close read, and re-read, of this excellent volume, including the latest fallen, e.g Michael Vick, Alberto Gonzales, Don Imus, Dan Rather, etc. Many great quotes, Eastern wisdom to Broadway, telling anecdotes and insightful studies contained herein, but more than just anecdotes, the authors lay out a five-step blueprint on making a comeback: 1) fight, don't flee, 2) recruit others to help, 3) rebuild heroic stature, 4) prove your mettle and 5) rediscover your heroic mission. Highly recommended. Rx: give it to a young manager, may just save him/her tons of grief down the road. Review by John A. Sarkett, author, Extraordinary Comebacks.

A deep understaning of CEOs as humans

Unfortunately, much of the literature on CEOs depicts them as either Gods , demons or idiots. I have worked with many CEOs and have found them to be human beings - just like the rest of us. Jeff Sonnenfeld is one of the few authors who has actually interacted with hundreds of CEOs. This book depicts the 'human drama' of success and failure at the top of the executive world. It also has lessons about defeat, courage and perserverence that we can all use. Lots of books talk about what we can learn from success stories - few talk about what we can learn when we fail. From my experince, most of of learning comes from our losses - not our victories. We will all face adversity. We will all fail. 'Firing Back' gives us some great ideas about how to make a comeback when that happens.

A Choice - Even in Defeat

While I'm not in the league of the leaders featured in 'Firing Back' it has had a profound impact on how I dealt with a recent set back. I realize now, that I have a choice - even in defeat. The advice is practical and quickly changed how I viewed my situation. I now know I'm not alone and am excited about my new path of 'Firing Back'.

Tennyson was right: "To strive, to seek, to find...and not to yield."

As I began to read this book, I was reminded of Jack Dempsey's observation that "champions get up when they can't." All of us have encountered professional setbacks of one kind or another and some of them are especially difficult to overcome. Most of the examples which Jeffrey Sonnenfeld and Andrew Ward cite in this book involve CEOs who either "fired back"and eventually prevailed after a career setback (e.g. Donald Trump, Martha Stewart, Bernie Marcus, Jimmy Carter, and George Foreman) or never fully recovered from them (e.g. Jill Barad, John Scully, Leona Helmsley, Jacques Nasser, and Linda Warnaco). The former demonstrate the importance of "seven lessons to turn tragedy into triumph" which Sonnenfeld and Ward recommend; the latter demonstrate the probable consequences of failing to understand and then apply those lessons on which a five-step strategy - "for rescuing and restoring a career and reputation after a devastating professional setback" -- is based. It would be a disservice to Sonnenfeld and Ward as well as to those who read this brief commentary if I were to list the "lessons" and "steps" which are best revealed within the narrative of this remarkably thoughtful, eloquent, and practical book. Each is anchored in a real-world context. Each is relevant to anyone now embarked upon or preparing for a professional career. I mention this last point because some who consider purchasing this book may incorrectly assume that its material will be of greatest value only to senior-level executives. On the contrary, all of Sonnenfeld and Ward's observations and recommendations can be of substantial benefit to anyone who wishes to (a) avoid "a devastating professional setback" or (b) recover from one. In essence, this book provides Sonnenfeld and Ward's response to this question: "How can I overcome a professional setback?" To their credit, at no time do they minimize or trivialize the impact of a professional setback. (Presumably each has experienced a few of his own.) They fully appreciate the difficulty of overcoming the debilitating psychological stress of failure, the challenges of failure to one's reputation (both personal and professional), social biases about failure, and other challenges which may be unique to one's company, its culture, and its industry. If not "tragic" or "devastating," a setback almost always lowers one's self-esteem, is embarrassing, and has adverse financial consequences. More often than not, there is collateral damage to one's family members and/or to one's close colleagues at work so guilt also comes into play. Recall the Dempsey quotation provided earlier. Presumably Sonnenfeld and Ward agree with Dempsey on the importance of courage and also with me that it is much easier to summon the courage to "get up" when you are convinced that the situation is not hopeless, and, that you can indeed recover if you understand what has happened, why it has happened, and how you can - and should -- respond to it. Of cou