Outsmarting the Avalanche - by Michael J Orlando (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

The most dangerous decisions always sound like common sense. Can you tell the difference?

In high-stakes leadership, failure is rarely the result of stupidity or malice. It is the cumulative weight of "rational" decisions, of small concessions in culture, process, and accountability that feel like common sense in the moment but create catastrophic momentum over time.

How do you recognize a disaster when it still looks like a strategic pivot?

Fintech veteran Mike Orlando has spent twenty years navigating the boardrooms of Garmin, Visa, and CyberSource. Now he's pulling back the curtain on corporate crises. Part memoir and part tactical handbook, this executive-level "choose-your-own-adventure" places you at the center of an organizational breakdown.

As the narrative unfolds, you aren't just a reader. You are the decision-maker. Through fictionalized scenarios based on real-world leadership challenges, you will:

• Audit the Culture: Use diagnostic frameworks to spot flawed logic when it's dressed up as common sense.
• Trace the Pattern: Connect modern workplace dynamics to historical failures, where the smartest people in the room got it wrong.
• Improve the Logic Identify the logical fallacies hidden within strategies, decks, and leadership alignment.

Whether you are a senior executive refining your strategic intuition or an emerging leader building organizational fluency, Outsmarting the Avalanche is a masterclass in critical thinking.