Shockproof: How to Hardwire Your Business for Lasting Success

Chapter 2. Headlines or Tombstones?

That some achieve great success is proof to all that others can achieve it as well.

—Abraham Lincoln

U.S. Postal Service Reports $1.6 Billion Quarter Loss

—Bloomberg

FedEx Corp. Increases Earnings Outlook

—Wall Street Journal

Can Crocs Be More Than a One-Hit Wonder?

—Time

Nike Sees Sales Up 40 Percent by 2015

—Reuters

BearingPoint Seeks Bankruptcy Protection

—Washington Post

Carlyle's Booz Allen Hamilton Seeks $300 Million IPO

—Bloomberg Businessweek

The business press never blinks. Good news. Bad news. No news. It's all fair game for the 24-hour news cycle, which has a ravenous appetite, and thousands of stories are produced every day for its consumption. Conditioned to this, business leaders often worry about "staying off the front page," unless of course their news is positive, in which case they want the world to know. And most would agree with Edward R. Murrow who famously said, "We cannot make good news out of bad practice,"^[8] so there's added pressure to perform. As observers and news consumers, we're in the catbird seat, able to watch and learn from the experiences of others.

So what's to be learned from the successes and failures of the businesses and leaders that have gone before us? What distinguishes the winners from the losers? The one-hit wonders from the classics? For every Eric Clapton there are thousands of Tommy Tutones, and the difference is less in what they do and more in how they do it. Great businesses, like great musicians, are able ...