git:20260429.05586c7 to git:20260429.bf2dad1
105 added, 192 removed. Audit A to A.
---
name: business-adventures-analysis-brooks
description: Use Business Adventures for "why did this fail?", "analyze this crisis", "what pattern applies?", or "what would Brooks notice?"
license: "Skill distillation for personal/educational use. Do not reproduce source passages verbatim."
---
- # Business Adventures Analysis
+ # Business Adventures Analysis — Skill (John Brooks)
- ## Overview
+ **Knowledge source:** *Business Adventures* by John Brooks.
+ **Architecture:** Orchestrator + 6 subskills. The main `SKILL.md` routes the user query; subskills execute the diagnostic workflows and own their reference IDs.
- Use this skill to apply John Brooks's *Business Adventures* as a diagnostic framework for corporate failures, market panics, product launches, governance breakdowns, regulatory risk, fraud, innovation, and financial culture. The skill does not summarize the book. It maps a live business situation to the recurring patterns Brooks documented: panic, hubris, communication failure, incentive drift, regulatory lag, product-market mismatch, and institutional fragility.
+ ```text
+ business-adventures-analysis-brooks/
+ ├── SKILL.md
+ ├── quotes/
+ └── subskills/
+ ├── m1_failure_diagnosis/
+ │ ├── module.md
+ │ └── references/case_library.md
+ ├── m2_market_panic/
+ │ ├── module.md
+ │ └── references/case_library.md
+ ├── m3_regulatory_risk/
+ │ ├── module.md
+ │ └── references/case_library.md
+ ├── m4_product_innovation/
+ │ ├── module.md
+ │ └── references/case_library.md
+ ├── m5_governance_accountability/
+ │ ├── module.md
+ │ └── references/case_library.md
+ └── m6_fraud_institutional_fragility/
+ ├── module.md
+ └── references/case_library.md
+ ```
- ## When to Use This Skill
+ ## Skill Purpose
- Invoke this skill when the user asks:
+ Use this skill to apply John Brooks's *Business Adventures* as a diagnostic framework for corporate failures, market panics, product launches, governance breakdowns, regulatory risk, fraud, innovation, and financial culture.
- - "Why did this company, product, or strategy fail?"
- - "Analyze this business case."
- - "What historical pattern does this resemble?"
- - "What would John Brooks say about this crisis?"
- - "Is this governance, compliance, or regulatory behavior a warning sign?"
- - "How do market panics typically unfold?"
- - "What lessons from Edsel, Xerox, Texas Gulf Sulphur, Piggly Wiggly, or the 1962 crash apply here?"
+ The skill does not summarize the book or predict the future by analogy. It maps a live business situation to recurring Brooks patterns: panic, hubris, communication failure, incentive drift, regulatory lag, product-market mismatch, and institutional fragility.
## Core Principle
- Human nature is the constant; institutions are the variable. The analyst's job is to identify the repeating human pattern first, then examine how structure, incentives, rules, and timing amplify it.
+ Human nature is the constant; institutions are the variable. Identify the repeating human pattern first, then examine how structure, incentives, rules, timing, and information flow amplify it.
## Workflow Inventory
- | Workflow | User question pattern | Inputs | Steps | Output |
- |---|---|---|---|---|
- | Failure diagnosis | "Why did this fail?" | Company/product, timeline, market context, decisions | Map product timing, incentives, governance, execution | Primary failure pattern and historical parallel |
- | Market panic analysis | "What is happening in this crash?" | Trigger, price moves, liquidity, media, forced sellers | Map panic arc and technical amplifiers | Phase assessment and stabilizers |
- | Regulatory risk review | "Is this practice risky?" | Practice, disclosure, materiality, enforcement context | Test materiality, tolerance history, enforcement lag | Risk level and warning signs |
- | Innovation analysis | "Is this disruptive?" | New product, incumbents, adoption, moat | Test new-market creation and incumbent blind spots | Xerox/Piggly Wiggly-style comparison |
- | Governance accountability | "Is management handling this well?" | Board, incentives, crisis response, shareholder power | Separate governance theater from consequences | Accountability diagnosis |
-
- ## DIMENSION 1: Market Psychology and Panic Patterns
-
- **Rule:** Markets can reverse, reverse again, and make technical infrastructure part of the psychology. A panic is not only a price move; it is a social and operational feedback loop.
-
- **Key questions:**
-
- - What triggered the decline?
- - Are forced sellers, margin calls, redemptions, or liquidity gaps amplifying it?
- - Is information delayed, confusing, or contradictory?
- - Who can stabilize the market: bargain hunters, specialists, central banks, buyers with cash?
- - Is the dominant fear fundamental deterioration or fear of the market itself?
-
- **Checklist:**
-
- - [ ] Identify trigger versus amplifier.
- - [ ] Track technical stress: settlement, order execution, spreads, liquidity.
- - [ ] Identify forced sellers.
- - [ ] Watch narrative escalation through media and institutions.
- - [ ] Look for credible stabilizing buyers.
-
- **Agent instruction:** For any market-crisis query, map the situation to the panic arc, then separate fundamental information from reflexive selling pressure.
-
- ## DIMENSION 2: Product Strategy and Market Timing
-
- **Rule:** Extensive research, capital, and planning cannot save a product whose positioning and timing no longer match the market.
-
- **Key questions:**
-
- - Did the market change after the product was designed?
- - Is launch timing driven by customer readiness or internal commitments?
- - Is the product differentiated in one sentence?
- - Did research capture actual buying behavior or only stated preference?
- - Are distributors, employees, and partners committed to the product itself or to the launch campaign?
-
- **Checklist:**
-
- - [ ] Validate current demand, not planning-era demand.
- - [ ] Test the product name and category association.
- - [ ] Check whether the design is a committee compromise.
- - [ ] Compare the offer to where competitors and customers are moving.
- - [ ] Identify sunk-cost pressure.
-
- **Agent instruction:** For launch failures, apply the Edsel template: overconfidence in planning plus weak market fit plus timing drift.
-
- ## DIMENSION 3: Corporate Communication Failure
-
- **Rule:** Large organizations often preserve a gap between official policy and actual behavior through layers, incentives, and plausible deniability.
-
- **Key questions:**
-
- - Do incentives contradict stated values?
- - How many layers separate policy-setters from executors?
- - Has the same issue recurred after formal warnings?
- - Is leadership using passive accountability language?
- - Are compliance and performance managed by separate systems?
-
- **Checklist:**
-
- - [ ] Map policy, incentives, and execution separately.
- - [ ] Identify who benefits from noncompliance.
- - [ ] Check whether executives can credibly claim ignorance.
- - [ ] Look for recurring violations after training or certifications.
- - [ ] Distinguish individual misconduct from structural drift.
-
- **Agent instruction:** For scandals and execution failures, diagnose the structure that made the behavior rational before blaming only individuals.
-
- ## DIMENSION 4: Regulatory and Legal Risk
-
- **Rule:** Widely tolerated practices become dangerous when a visible crisis forces regulators to define or enforce a boundary.
-
- **Key questions:**
-
- - Has the practice been tolerated because enforcement was dormant?
- - Would a reasonable investor, customer, or regulator consider the information material?
- - Was disclosure genuinely public and usable?
- - Are insiders acting before outsiders can respond?
- - Could the next crisis rewrite the rules?
-
- **Checklist:**
-
- - [ ] Apply a materiality test.
- - [ ] Identify timing between internal knowledge and public disclosure.
- - [ ] Check whether industry custom is being mistaken for legality.
- - [ ] Assess current and future enforcement pressure separately.
- - [ ] Identify rule-makers who can change the game.
-
- **Agent instruction:** For regulatory questions, distinguish current legal exposure from latent rule-change risk.
-
- ## DIMENSION 5: Innovation and Disruption Dynamics
-
- **Rule:** New markets are often invisible to incumbents because conventional research measures the old market.
-
- **Key questions:**
-
- - Is the product improving an existing behavior or creating a new one?
- - Which incumbents rejected it, and why?
- - Does the incumbent lose money if the innovation succeeds?
- - Is the adoption pattern coming from unexpected users?
- - Is there a patent, data, network, or distribution moat?
-
- **Checklist:**
-
- - [ ] Determine whether existing market-size research is valid.
- - [ ] Identify incumbent cannibalization incentives.
- - [ ] Look for enthusiastic early users outside the expected segment.
- - [ ] Assess lead time and defensibility.
- - [ ] Separate invention from commercialization capability.
-
- **Agent instruction:** For technology and disruption questions, use the Xerox template: breakthrough plus underestimated demand plus organizational ability to scale.
-
- ## DIMENSION 6: Governance and Accountability
-
- **Rule:** Boards, annual meetings, ethics codes, and committees are governance theater unless they change behavior and impose consequences.
-
- **Key questions:**
-
- - Do shareholders or stakeholders have real power?
- - Are executives personally accountable for avoidable failure?
- - Does the board response address root causes or only optics?
- - Can rule-makers change the rules against one party during a crisis?
- - Is dissent recorded but neutralized?
-
- **Checklist:**
-
- - [ ] Evaluate consequences, not process.
- - [ ] Check board independence and incentives.
- - [ ] Test whether crisis fixes change operating behavior.
- - [ ] Identify who controls the rules.
- - [ ] Determine whether accountability is personal or absorbed by the institution.
-
- **Agent instruction:** For governance cases, separate formal mechanisms from actual power.
+ | Workflow | User question pattern | Inputs | Steps | Output | Should be subskill? |
+ |---|---|---|---|---|---|
+ | Failure diagnosis | "Why did this company, product, or strategy fail?" | Company/product, timeline, market context, decisions | Pattern map, decision chain, warning signals, preventable actions | Primary failure pattern and decision correction | Yes |
+ | Market panic analysis | "What is happening in this crash?" | Trigger, price moves, liquidity, media, forced sellers | Panic phase, technical amplifiers, stabilizers, uncertainty | Panic diagnosis and stabilizer map | Yes |
+ | Regulatory risk review | "Is this practice risky?" | Practice, disclosure, materiality, enforcement context | Materiality, public usability, tolerated-practice risk, rule-change trigger | Risk level and action | Yes |
+ | Product and innovation review | "Will this launch or innovation work?" | Product, customers, incumbents, distribution, research | Timing test, differentiation, incumbent blind spots, commercialization | Stop/redesign/accelerate/monitor recommendation | Yes |
+ | Governance accountability | "Is management handling this well?" | Board, incentives, crisis response, shareholder/stakeholder power | Formal power vs real consequences, incentives, accountability | Governance diagnosis | Yes |
+ | Fraud and institutional fragility | "How exposed is this system?" | Trust mechanism, counterparties, collateral, disclosure, losses | Hidden exposure, responsibility transfer, contagion path, controls | Fragility map and safeguards | Yes |
- ## Query Response Framework
+ ## When to Use This Skill
- ### Failure Diagnosis
+ Invoke this skill when the user asks:
- 1. Name the active human pattern.
- 2. Select the 2-3 most relevant dimensions.
- 3. Compare the case to the closest Brooks episode.
- 4. Explain primary cause, secondary amplifiers, and preventable signals.
- 5. End with what the decision-maker should change.
+ - "Why did this company, product, or strategy fail?"
+ - "Analyze this business case."
+ - "What historical pattern does this resemble?"
+ - "What would John Brooks say about this crisis?"
+ - "Is this governance, compliance, or regulatory behavior a warning sign?"
+ - "How do market panics typically unfold?"
+ - "What lessons from Edsel, Xerox, Texas Gulf Sulphur, Piggly Wiggly, or the 1962 crash apply here?"
- ### Market Crisis
+ ## Routing Rules
- 1. Identify trigger and phase of panic.
- 2. Separate fundamental news from technical amplifiers.
- 3. Identify stabilizers and rule-makers.
- 4. Compare to the 1962 crash or related market episodes.
- 5. Give an outlook with uncertainty stated plainly.
+ | User question type | Must run | Optional run |
+ |---|---|---|
+ | Broad case diagnosis or postmortem | M1 Failure Diagnosis | M3, M4, M5, or M6 depending on facts |
+ | Market crash, liquidity stress, speculative mania, selloff | M2 Market Panic | M6 if counterparties or technical systems are central |
+ | Insider information, disclosure, antitrust, tax, tolerated practice | M3 Regulatory Risk | M5 if board/executive accountability matters |
+ | Product launch, failed product, innovation, incumbent blindness | M4 Product and Innovation | M1 for full failure postmortem |
+ | Board conduct, shareholder power, executive accountability, crisis leadership | M5 Governance Accountability | M3 if legal exposure is material |
+ | Fraud, collateral failure, hidden exposure, systemic support, institutional trust | M6 Fraud and Institutional Fragility | M2 if panic dynamics are present |
+ | User asks only for historical parallel | Run the closest single module | M1 if the parallel needs a broader diagnosis |
- ### Regulatory or Governance Risk
+ ## Execution Rules
- 1. Identify the tolerated practice or accountability gap.
- 2. Apply materiality, disclosure, incentive, and enforcement-lag tests.
- 3. State risk level: low, medium, high, or uncertain.
- 4. Name the historical pattern.
- 5. Recommend governance or disclosure action.
+ 1. Read only the modules required by the routing table.
+ 2. If the user gives a broad failure question, run M1 first and then route to the most relevant specialist module.
+ 3. If the user data is thin, ask for the missing timeline, actors, incentives, disclosures, and consequences before giving a confident diagnosis.
+ 4. Do not run every module for a narrow question.
+ 5. Use historical parallels as diagnostic lenses, not as predictions.
+ 6. Each module owns its reference IDs in `references/case_library.md`; when citing Brooks-derived claims, use the IDs from the module actually run.
- ## Output Format
+ ## Multi-Module Output Format
```markdown
## Brooks Pattern Diagnosis
- Situation:
+ - Primary module:
+ - Supporting modules:
- Active human pattern:
- - Relevant dimensions:
- Closest historical parallel:
- ## Analysis
- - Primary cause:
+ ## Diagnostic Chain
+ - Trigger:
+ - Decisions:
+ - Incentives:
- Amplifiers:
- Warning signals:
- - Missing information:
+ - Missing facts:
## Risk / Opportunity
- Current risk:
- Latent risk:
- - Rule-maker or stabilizer:
+ - Rule-maker, stabilizer, or accountable actor:
+ - What would change the diagnosis:
## Recommendation
- - What to do now:
+ - Continue / change / stop:
+ - Immediate action:
- What to monitor:
- - What would make the diagnosis wrong:
+ - Evidence needed next:
+
+ ## Sources
+ - REF-...
```
+ ## Subskill Status
+
+ | Subskill | Path | Status |
+ |---|---|---|
+ | M1 Failure Diagnosis | `subskills/m1_failure_diagnosis/` | Available |
+ | M2 Market Panic | `subskills/m2_market_panic/` | Available |
+ | M3 Regulatory Risk | `subskills/m3_regulatory_risk/` | Available |
+ | M4 Product and Innovation | `subskills/m4_product_innovation/` | Available |
+ | M5 Governance Accountability | `subskills/m5_governance_accountability/` | Available |
+ | M6 Fraud and Institutional Fragility | `subskills/m6_fraud_institutional_fragility/` | Available |
+
## CITATION RULES
- When the user asks for sources, or when producing a formal analysis, cite the quote files for Brooks-derived principles.
+ When the user asks for sources, or when producing a formal analysis, cite the quote files for Brooks-derived principles. Each routed module has a `references/case_library.md` with stable IDs mapped to the quote files and anchors below.
**Quote files:**
- `quotes/market-dynamics-quotes.md` — market fluctuation, panic psychology, technical breakdown, speculative cycles.
- `quotes/corporate-strategy-quotes.md` — product failure, Edsel, Xerox, innovation, corporate decline.
- `quotes/risk-crisis-quotes.md` — fraud, crisis, regulation, institutional fragility.
- `quotes/investor-behavior-quotes.md` — stockholder power, speculation, Wall Street behavior.
- `quotes/wall-street-wisdom-quotes.md` — finance culture and recurring market lessons.
**Anchor mapping:**
- - `market-dynamics-quotes.md`: `#market-will-fluctuate`, `#morgans-maxim`, `#antiperistasis-defined`, `#expectation-vs-event`, `#tape-delay-consequences`, `#panic-psychology`, `#crisis-creates-chaos`, `#psychological-gestures`, `#crisis-unfathomable`, `#speculative-cycles`
- - `corporate-strategy-quotes.md`: `#edsel-market-research`, `#car-personality`, `#edsel-name-decision`, `#timing-risk`, `#kaiser-lesson`, `#styling-decisions`, `#image-conflict`, `#copies-stigma`, `#corner-game`, `#tragic-flaw`, `#communication-problem`, `#corporate-power`, `#meeting-authority`
- - `risk-crisis-quotes.md`: `#insider-information-value`, `#stacked-deck`, `#insider-incentive`, `#haupt-risk`, `#vegetable-oil-exposure`, `#exchange-responsibility`, `#sherman-act`, `#conspiracy-concealment`, `#price-fixing-penalty`, `#central-bank-purpose`, `#federal-reserve-role`, `#tax-law-scope`
- - `investor-behavior-quotes.md`: `#never-give-advice`, `#entertainment-vs-greed`, `#walk-ins-as-indicator`, `#who-sold-in-crash`, `#mutual-funds-as-stabilizer`, `#funds-spotted-bargains`, `#losing-other-peoples-money`, `#fear-of-fund-redemptions`, `#margin-call-spiral`
+ - `market-dynamics-quotes.md`: `#market-will-fluctuate`, `#morgans-maxim`, `#antiperistasis-defined`, `#expectation-vs-event`, `#tape-delay-consequences`, `#panic-psychology`, `#crisis-creates-chaos`, `#psychological-gestures`, `#bellwether-stocks`, `#round-number-psychology`, `#specialist-wisdom`, `#crisis-unfathomable`, `#speculative-cycles`, `#sweetness-of-honey`
+ - `corporate-strategy-quotes.md`: `#edsel-market-research`, `#car-personality`, `#edsel-name-decision`, `#timing-risk`, `#kaiser-lesson`, `#styling-decisions`, `#image-conflict`, `#copies-stigma`, `#copies-suspicion`, `#corner-game`, `#tragic-flaw`, `#communication-problem`, `#corporate-power`, `#meeting-authority`
+ - `risk-crisis-quotes.md`: `#insider-information-value`, `#stacked-deck`, `#insider-incentive`, `#haupt-risk`, `#vegetable-oil-exposure`, `#exchange-responsibility`, `#sherman-act`, `#conspiracy-concealment`, `#price-fixing-penalty`, `#central-bank-purpose`, `#federal-reserve-role`, `#tax-law-scope`, `#two-currencies`
+ - `investor-behavior-quotes.md`: `#never-give-advice`, `#entertainment-vs-greed`, `#jokes-as-attraction`, `#walk-ins-as-indicator`, `#lunch-hour-selling`, `#who-sold-in-crash`, `#mutual-funds-as-stabilizer`, `#funds-spotted-bargains`, `#losing-other-peoples-money`, `#fear-of-fund-redemptions`, `#air-of-unreality`, `#public-individuals-role`, `#margin-call-spiral`
- `wall-street-wisdom-quotes.md`: `#market-fragility`, `#edsel-lesson`, `#salad-oil-swindle`, `#stockholder-decline`, `#xerox-complacency`, `#go-go-years`, `#de-la-vega-observation`
**Citation format:**
```markdown
> "Author's exact words here."
>
> - [*Business Adventures*, cited excerpt](https://github.com/simbajigege/book2skills/blob/main/skills/business-adventures-analysis-brooks/quotes/market-dynamics-quotes.md#panic-psychology)
```
- Use only exact quote text from the quote files. If no exact quote fits, cite the closest anchor and state that the reasoning is a paraphrased Brooks application.
+ Use only exact quote text from the quote files. If no exact quote fits, cite the closest anchor or module reference ID and state that the reasoning is a paraphrased Brooks application.
- ## Critical Reminders
+ ## Do Not
- - Start with human behavior, then structure.
- - Do not assume preparation equals product-market fit.
- - Treat tolerated practices as latent regulatory risk.
- - Separate governance theater from consequences.
- - Identify who can change the rules during a crisis.
- - Historical parallels are diagnostic tools, not predictions.
+ - Do not treat historical parallels as deterministic forecasts.
+ - Do not explain a failure only with personality when incentives or structure made the behavior rational.
+ - Do not assume preparation, research, or capital equals product-market fit.
+ - Do not treat tolerated practices as safe when materiality, visibility, or public pressure can change enforcement.
+ - Do not confuse governance process with accountability.
+ - Do not cite quote text unless it appears in `quotes/` or a module `case_library.md`.