The Icarus Paradox of Management In ancient Greek mythology, Icarus h

In ancient Greek mythology, Icarus had wings of feathers held together by wax which enabled him to fly. Entranced with his newfound ability, Icarus ignored his father's warnings and soared ever higher. His wings eventually melted and he fell into the sea and drowned. In his book The Icarus Paradox, Danny Miller suggests that a similar fate can befall highly successful companies: confident in their positions of market dominance or their own exceptional management, these companies can falter and fail, victims of their own success. This research examines Miller's work in detail and considers its relevance for practicing managers as well as for students of management.

Miller suggests that companies which enjoy high levels of success are often unable to maintain and nurture those elements which made them successful. Thus a company which built its success on a commitment to quality at the smallest level can become enmeshed in too much attention to detail and a loss of focus on the company as a whole. The individuals who guided the company to its success become icons, while others in the organization are accorded little respect. Companies which were once successful because of their ability to be flexible become increasingly rigid in their internal structure and decision making process, and unwilling to expand into new markets away from their core business.

Using four areas that exist in every organization, strategy, goals, culture and structur

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syndrome can be turned around (Disney is a prime example under the leadership of Michael Eisner) and he applies his suggestions to the examples of companies which have not succumbed to failure because of the Icarus paradox. At the same time, the book has as its primary shortcoming the fact that it is descriptive, even in its suggestions on ways to avoid the Icarus paradox. Part of this shortcoming is a result of trying to analyze and predict management. The business world is constantly changing and the factors which Miller identified in 1990 as being influential on companies are likely to not be the same factors that are influential in 1999. It is well and good to recognize that monolithic cultures are a detriment to business, but Miller cannot predict what other types of cultures are emerging even as the reader is studying this book that will also either enhance or defeat the Icarus paradox. Innovations such as telecommuting and the changing economic environment are likely to affect business in ways that neither Miller nor other analysts can predict. A prime example of this shortcoming is the inclusion of IBM (among others) in Peters and Waterman's much-heralded In Search of Excellence, as compared to the company's precar

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