Corporate Trauma: The Toxic Legacy of a Crisis

All too often organizations appoint a new CEO to turnaround their fortunes, only to see a familiar pattern of failure repeated with each new strategy. Is this simply a case of poor leadership, or are there more complex issues at play? John Oliver’s ground-breaking book introduces the provocative concept of ’Corporate Trauma’, arguing that conventional turnaround playbooks often miss a critical element...the lingering impact of a past corporate crisis. Drawing inspiration from the biological field of Epigenetics, where an inherited generational trauma results from an environmental stress event, Corporate Trauma posits that a significant organizational shock can result in adaptive and embedded dysfunctional patterns deep within an organization’s cultural DNA. Through original case studies, this book offers a vital new diagnostic lens for leaders and consultants to understand why companies get trapped in a downward spiral of decline, identifying the entrenched negative attitudes and behaviors that act as a hidden killer of corporate turnarounds. By moving beyond the classic turnaround playbook to identify the ’root cause’ of persistent corporate failure, Corporate Trauma offers an invaluable path to success that will drive strategic renewal and inject ’vitality’ back into any struggling organization.

Prof. John Oliver is a highly experienced academic with a sustained track record of delivering world class instrumental impact from his research, most recently on the influence of crisis events on levels of firm innovation and financial performance which influenced the UK Govts new ’Build Back Better: our plan for growth’ and the Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy Committee’s new ’Innovation Strategy’. His previous research on digital transformation made a demonstrable impact on UK Communications policy and regulatory decisions relating to Sky Plc and influenced the public policy debate on future internet regulation and created financial benefits for several world class management consultancies and direct economic impacts and multi-million-pound investments made by FTSE 100 firms. He is an advisor to the Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology where his research and expertise on scenario planning is currently being used to develop horizon scanning policy and processes in UK Parliament.