True Corporate Grit (HBR Article Collection)

HBR OnPoint collections include an overview and 3 full-text HBR articles, each with a synopsis and annotated bibliography. Despite the lurid, ubiquitous exposes of corporate corruption, most executives aren't crooks. U.S. companies' current woes stem less from outright malfeasance than mismanagement. Specifically, some executives have lost the discipline to set reasoned strategies for prosperity. Instead, we let outside forces--especially Wall Street--direct us. Compensated handsomely for meeting investors' expectations, we sacrifice our companies' long-term success for our own short-term financial gain. We provide vague data to investors, auditors, boards, and analysts--to convince them (and ourselves) that our firms are healthy. Then the Street raises its expectations further. Our response? Overambitious goals and plans, which foster expensive acquisitions, excess plant and workforce capacity (followed by layoffs), and enslavement to quarterly earnings reports and other questionable accounting practices. When our companies' problems come to light, shareholders fume over worthless stock. Employees grow alienated. Companies implode. Here's how to establish new expectations--based on fortitude and honesty. The three Harvard Business Review articles in this collection: "A Letter to the Chief Executive" by Joseph Fuller (HBR standard reprint R0210G), "The Earnings Game: Everyone Plays, Nobody Wins" by Harris Collingwood (HBR standard reprint R0106C), and "Tread Lightly Through These Accounting Minefields" by H. David Sherman and S. David Young (HBR standard reprint R0107K).