Outsmarting the Avalanche: Circumvent Catastrophe, Conquer Crisis, and Cultivate Culture

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. In Outsmarting the Avalanche, he pulls back the curtain on the anatomy of a corporate crisis. 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:

• Interrupt the Momentum: Identify the logical fallacies hidden within strategies, decks, and leadership “alignment.”
• Trace the Pattern: Connect modern workplace dynamics to iconic historical failures where the smartest people in the room got it wrong.
• Audit the Culture: Use sharp, diagnostic frameworks to spot flawed logic before it’s dressed up as common sense.

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.

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

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