As for the enjoyable part, the book is told through a series of anecdotes and in-depth retellings of mostly familiar blunders. Reinforced with insider interviews and extensive research of the contemporary media coverage, these stories come alive making it very readable. This combination of message and method make "Why Smart Executives Fail" an extremely valuable and somewhat unique resource.
One problem is that the study is flawed by a lack of anything like a control group. For example, he makes a big deal about Motorola's reluctance to venture into digital cell phones in the mid 90s -- surely a big recent corporate failure -- but then doesn't examine a situation where a company (correctly) refused to overhaul its product line (such instances do occur). The lesson he draws is excessively oversimplified and I'm not sure it applies anywhere beyond the cell phone market of the mid 90s.
Another example: Finkelstein points out to cases of CEO hubris, in which an invincible company head leads the company to ruin for various reasons (poor listening, a sense of invincibility, a reluctance to tolerate criticism, et al). The potential dangers of an excessively headstrong leader is no news to either business or general readers. But Finkelstein doesn't acknowledge that headstrong leaders can often be vital assets to a company. He doesn't go into enough detail and instead delivers an incomplete, unsatisfying answer to the problem such CEOs present.
In general, the book is marked by shallow analysis, repetitive and overarching review of the case studies, and underdeveloped understanding of marketing and finance (for example, Finkelstein makes a howling mistake in discussing Tyco's accounting), let alone technological trends.
The sheer amount of repetition is also unhelpful -- Finkelstein must refer to the Motorola analysis a dozen times in the second half of the book without ever expanding on it -- and the endless series of lists in the book's second half... well, how can one really "use" 12 bullet points from list #7? Bad organization, which reflects an inability to boil down his case into a shorter, more concise summary.
Sophisticated businesspeople will have no use for this sort of analysis. Less advanced readers will not profit from the book's weak organization, which betrays a lack of thought. Not recommended.