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This book recounts one of the greatest and most spectacular business successes and downfalls in history: that of Nokia in mobile phones. The analysis of Nokia´s story distills more general observations and learning points for leaders of other corporations, management scholars, and students.

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In less than three decades, Nokia emerged from Finland to lead the mobile phone revolution. It grew to have one of the most recognizable and valuable brands in the world and then fell into decline, leading to the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft. This book explores and analyzes that journey and distils observations and learning points for anyone keen to understand what drove Nokia´s amazing success and sudden downfall.

With privileged access to Nokia´s senior managers over the last twenty years followed by a more concerted research agenda from 2015, the authors describe and analyze, the various stages in Nokia´s journey. The book describes leaders making strategic and organizational decisions, their behavior and interactions, and how they succeeded and failed to inspire and engage their employees. Perhaps most intriguingly, it opens the proverbial ´black box´ of why and how things actually happen at the top
of organizations.

Why did things fall apart? To what extent were avoidable mistakes made? Did the world around Nokia change too fast for it to adapt? And, did Nokia´s success contain the seeds of its failure?

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An insightful analysis of a company I thought I knew well. If only Nokia´s leadership had had this knowledge earlierbut as we know, this is never the case! Two key takeaways: there is always a human and human relationships in the center and secondly, navigating complexity is of paramount importance going forward. Today more than ever. Antti Herlin, Chairman of Kone Corporation

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