{"title":"Simon Laffin","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"behind-closed-doors-book-simon-laffin-9781914529047","title":"Behind Closed Doors","description":"Behind Closed Doors is unique. It opens the doors to the boardroom and explains what happens inside. Using his thirty years of board experience, Simon Laffin describes board issues, all of which he has experienced, and how boards deal with them. He gives over 150 tips, including how better decisions could be taken and how board directors can better join in those debates. He doesn't shy away from difficult topics; from how a company responds to a hostile take-over, to how to remove an underperforming director, and even how to handle sex in the boardroom: To name but a few. He argues strongly that boardrooms need more female and ethnic minority directors, and pinpoints the problem that underrepresented groups lack board experience and knowledge, something that this book can start to address.   This book is about being a real director. How do you get to be one? How does it feel to join a board for the first time? How do you develop relationships with other directors? How do you make the right decisions? What do those financials mean? How should the board handle shareholders? How do you set executive pay? The book answers all these questions and more in an engaging style, packed with amusing anecdotes and much painfully-earned, real-life experience.   It is a manifesto for more informed and effective boards. Reading this book will give directors a better understanding of the issues that arise inside the boardroom. His tips on building relationships and working together will make boards more cohesive teams. These will make be bigger contributions to better governance than the plethora of corporate regulation that is being developed and implemented globally. Politically-driven, populist, rule changes are challenged as the book demands evidence-based and tested regulation, focussed on people doing a difficult job, not easy targets for lazy blame.   Behind Closed Doors sheds new light on the hidden workings of company boards, and will appeal to anyone interested in the boardroom; current directors; aspiring directors; commentators on, and students, of business; and even enlighted regulators.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49528387076369,"sku":"GOR012003035","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":49740501582097,"sku":"NGR9781914529047","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1914529049.jpg?v=1751450920"},{"product_id":"why-companies-fail-book-simon-laffin-9781917377607","title":"Why Companies Fail","description":"Every major corporate scandal follows a familiar script.   A company fails; lives are damaged, fortunes are lost, and the hunt for culprits begins. The media demands accountability. Politicians promise reform. Regulators write new rules. Yet, despite decades of inquiries, reports and governance reforms, the same patterns of failure keep recurring.  What if these explanations are missing the real story? Why do intelligent, experienced leaders and boards sometimes lead themselves towards disaster?   Drawing on 27 major corporate failures spanning more than three centuries - from the South Sea Bubble and Barings Bank to Northern Rock, Carillion, the Post Office Horizon scandal and FTX - this book reveals the hidden human dynamics that contribute to corporate collapse. It shows how capable people make flawed decisions, how boardrooms become vulnerable to collective blind spots, and how organisations gradually normalise behaviours that, in hindsight, seem obviously dangerous.  The authors argue that corporate failures are not caused by a few bad individuals. They emerge from entirely human processes: the way people interpret information, respond to pressure, build relationships, create norms and make decisions together. Over time, these forces can impair judgement, suppress challenge and gradually normalise behaviours that increase risk and weaken organisational resilience.  Written by Simon Laffin, an experienced chairman and City veteran, and Stephen Jarvis, a psychologist specialising in human factors and aviation safety, Why Companies Fail blends compelling case studies with insights from psychology, human factors and organisational research. The result is a practical and thought-provoking guide for directors, executives, regulators, commentators and investors who want to move beyond blame, recognise the conditions that allow failure to develop, and build more effective boards and more resilient organisations.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"- \/ - \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":53702160417041,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ NEW \/ GARDNERS","offer_id":53702161170705,"sku":"NGR9781917377607","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/en-ie\/collections\/author-books-by-simon-laffin.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}