Get Well Soon

More companies failed in 2001 than in any year on record. According to Carter Pate, the U.S. head of PricewaterhouseCoopers' turnaround team, more will fail in 2002. But Pate and Northeastern University business professor Harlan Platt argue failure need not be final in The Phoenix Effect (John Wiley & Sons, $27.95). By applying proven techniques for resuscitating cash flow and energizing performance, many companies recover from hard times and reemerge stronger and better, they say.

Pate and Platt's account is both practical and inspiring. Pate has headed the rejuvenations of a marquee roster of corporations. Platt contributes a professor's quality of objectivity and thoroughness to examples such as the analysis of how changing a product's characteristics can help or hurt a troubled company's chances for a rebound. One interesting conclusion on that point: Managers of companies in trouble should not cut prices in hopes of generating additional cash, the authors say. It often makes more sense to raise prices.