Every institution, no matter how great, is vulnerable to decline. There is no law of nature that the most powerful will inevitably remain at the top. Anyone can fall and most eventually do. However, as Collins’ research emphasizes, some companies do indeed recover and in some cases, coming back even stronger. In How the Mighty Fall, Collins confronts some questions, offering leaders the well-founded hope that they can learn how to steer off decline and, if they find themselves falling, reverse their course. These five step-wise stages of decline are: Stage 1: Hubris Born of Success Stage 2: Undisciplined Pursuit of More Stage 3: Denial of Risk and Peril Stage 4: Grasping for Salvation Stage 5: Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death By Understanding these steps of decline, leaders can substantially reduce their chances of falling all the way to the bottom.