A couple of weeks ago Amanda Gome pointed us all to an article in Inc Magazine interviewing “Good to Great” author Jim Collins. This week I want to point everyone to another one in Business Week that is a primer to the topic of his new book – How the Mighty Fall.
Since “Built to Last” and “Good to Great” were published, some of the companies highlighted have fallen on, shall we say, tougher times – and for some this has called into question the veracity of the premises explored in these bestselling books. For Jim, it didn’t really cause much angst; as he says in the article “just because a company falls doesn’t invalidate what we can learn by studying that company when it was at its historical best.”
Still, when working with a group of students at West Point, including US Army generals, CEOs and social sector leaders, a compelling question revealed itself. “How would you know?” (that you were on the path to decline).
Being a sucker for a good question, it sent Jim and his team of researchers on a quest to find at least part of the answer, which has become the topic of a new book. Called the “Five Stages of Decline” they provide both warning and hope.
Hubris Born of Success
Success is never an entitlement and those who see it as such take a first step on the path to decline.
Undisciplined Pursuit of More
More is not always better, sometimes it is just more, and when that more comes at the expense of disciplined attention to your core, the rot has begun.
Denial of Risk and Peril
Ignoring the warning signs or trying to spin them to fit a preconceived picture will put you on the fast track to number four.
Grasping for Salvation
Throwing the kitchen sink at the problem, and lurching from trying one thing to another, is unlikely to do much except accelerate your demise.
Capitulation to Irrelevance of Death
When the accumulated setbacks and missteps take their toll, the result is often unrecoverable and the company ceases to exist.
The good news is that at any point up to level five you can turn it around. And the place to start is by maintaining a grasp of the brutal facts of reality, while at the same time building for a cause greater than mere survival or profit. I have talked about the Stockdale Paradox in previous blogs but never has it been more relevant.
The list of companies that taken huge falls during their history and recovered shows that even if you are on the path, you can turn around: Xerox, IBM and Disney are just a few that have lived through huge hits and fought their way back to the top.
As Jim hopefully states: “Great nations can decline and recover. Great companies can fall and recover. Great social institutions can fall and recover. And great individuals can fall and recover. As long as you never get entirely knocked out of the game, their remains hope…”
See you next week.
Alignment is Michel’s passion. Through her work with Brandology here in Australia, and Brand Alignment Group in the United States, she helps organisations align who they are, with what they do and say to build more authentic and sustainable brands.
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