The Phoenix Effect: 9 Revitalizing Strategies No Business Can Do Without
By Carter Pate and Harlan Platt
John Wiley and Sons Inc., February 2002
256 pages, $27.95
The key word in this book’s title is not “phoenix,” but “revitalizing.” But while it is true that the nine strategies could help a company rise from the ashes, it is always more effective to fix problems before they drive you into bankruptcy. The steps outlined by Pate, a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers Financial Advisory Services, and Platt, a professor at Northeastern University, can be reduced to this: Determine the scope of the problem, focus on it, and fix it. Using the nine steps to keep checking how you are doing could keep small problems from becoming big ones.