On his book Enduring Success: What We Can Learn from the History of Outstanding Corporations
Cover Interview of February 06, 2011
In a nutshell
In Enduring Success I address a key question in business today: How can companies succeed over time?
I argue that companies are able to adapt to a constantly changing environment by being intelligently conservative. Which contrasts the widely held belief that great companies succeed because they are pioneering innovators that place bold bets on great ideas.
The argument unfolds in layers.
First, I describe what companies that succeeded for at least 100 years did differently from others. My main argument is that they made sure that their strategy and organizational setup fit the environment of their business.
Second, I explain how these companies did this consistently over time. I develop five principles, stressing the importance of keeping reserves for difficult times, investing in several ideas and businesses rather than a single one, making the most of existing knowledge rather than permanently chasing new insights, developing mechanisms to learn from past mistakes, and being sensitive to the culture of a company when it needs to change.
Third, I elaborate on the characteristics of an intelligently conservative leader. I argue that, similar to a soccer coach, intelligently conservative leaders create winning teams by providing appropriate incentive structures, sufficient training, and occasionally substituting a player. They cannot score the goals themselves.
I am aware that the notion that you survive radical environmental changes by being intelligently conservative is counterintuitive. Therefore, I take great care in developing my argument. I provide a detailed description of the data I use and how I analyzed the information I gathered. All the chapters are carefully referenced, and I also devote one chapter to a comparison of my ideas with other work on long-term success.
[T]he Holocaust transformed our whole way of thinking about war and heroism. War is no longer a proving ground for heroism in the same way it used to be. Instead, war now is something that we must avoid at all costs—because genocides often take place under the cover of war. We are no longer all potential soldiers (though we are that too), but we are all potential victims of the traumas war creates. This, at least, is one important development in the way Western populations envision war, even if it does not always predominate in the thinking of our political leaders.Carolyn J. Dean, Interview of February 01, 2011
The dominant premise in evolution and economics is that a person is being loyal to natural law if he or she attends to self’s interest and welfare before being concerned with the needs and demands of family or community. The public does not realize that this statement is not an established scientific principle but an ethical preference. Nonetheless, this belief has created a moral confusion among North Americans and Europeans because the evolution of our species was accompanied by the disposition to worry about kin and the collectives to which one belongs.Jerome Kagan, Interview of September 17, 2009
In a nutshell
In Enduring Success I address a key question in business today: How can companies succeed over time?
I argue that companies are able to adapt to a constantly changing environment by being intelligently conservative. Which contrasts the widely held belief that great companies succeed because they are pioneering innovators that place bold bets on great ideas.
The argument unfolds in layers.
First, I describe what companies that succeeded for at least 100 years did differently from others. My main argument is that they made sure that their strategy and organizational setup fit the environment of their business.
Second, I explain how these companies did this consistently over time. I develop five principles, stressing the importance of keeping reserves for difficult times, investing in several ideas and businesses rather than a single one, making the most of existing knowledge rather than permanently chasing new insights, developing mechanisms to learn from past mistakes, and being sensitive to the culture of a company when it needs to change.
Third, I elaborate on the characteristics of an intelligently conservative leader. I argue that, similar to a soccer coach, intelligently conservative leaders create winning teams by providing appropriate incentive structures, sufficient training, and occasionally substituting a player. They cannot score the goals themselves.
I am aware that the notion that you survive radical environmental changes by being intelligently conservative is counterintuitive. Therefore, I take great care in developing my argument. I provide a detailed description of the data I use and how I analyzed the information I gathered. All the chapters are carefully referenced, and I also devote one chapter to a comparison of my ideas with other work on long-term success.