Corporate Canaries

Avoid Business Disasters with a Coal Miner’s Secrets

Managers are nervous. They should be. Fortune 500 companies fired more employees than they hired in the last two decades. Bankruptcies and fraud abound. In today's tumultuous business environment, managers want guidance in the form of a timely theme, a unique and memorable metaphor, and outside-the-box-thinking. That's precisely what Corporate Canaries delivers.

A century ago coal miners hung canary cages in their tunnels. The little birds went silent and dropped when poison gas seeped into the mine, offering workers a warning of the lurking dangers. In the same way that canaries protected miners, the principles in Corporate Canaries will protect companies by alerting executives and managers when their businesses are headed for real trouble.

The book features five core chapters revealing five common business hazards, and each lesson is accompanied by a story based on the author's grandfather's work in the coal industry, as well as an applicable "canary warning" for each theme.