Can decline be detected early and avoided? How far can a company fall before the path toward doom becomes inevitable and unshakable? How can companies reverse course? In "How the Mighty Fall", Collins confronts these questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to stave off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. By understanding the stages of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom. Great companies can stumble, badly, and recover. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. But, as Collins' research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover - in some cases, coming back even stronger - even after having crashed. Decline, it turns out, is largely self-inflicted, and the path to recovery lies largely within our own hands. As long as we never get entirely knocked out of the game, hope always remains. The mighty can fall, but they can often rise again.