I spent part of my day at an old-line manufacturing firm that is in an industry facing disruption by new technology. Rather than reacting to its fear of this technology by entering into despair or denial, it has become a leader in applying the new technology. The CEO told me it was obvious that within 10 years, the products that make up the bulk of its sales today will probably no longer exist. He thinks the firm will weather this transition, thanks to having spent several years now developing both the new technology and the business processes to support it. But he also says that some people inside the company don’t think it’s done enough, it needs to move faster, and he says he can’t really argue with them — the company has to improve still more.
Coincidentally, Jim Collins of “Good to Great” fame has an essay in the latest issue of Fortune about how to keep a big company alive. In the Secret of Enduring Greatness, he starts by looking at the brutal facts that only 71 firms from the original Fortune 500 (published in 1955) remain on the list today.
But then he notes that some firms, like Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson and General Electric, continue to thrive. The difference, he says is this:
“Whether you prevail or fail, endure or die, whether you make it onto the Fortune 500, and whether you stay there, depends more on what you do to yourself than on what the world does to you.”:
But many companies fear what the world will do to it, they fear competition, change, customers. They try to eliminate the sources of fear. The CEO I talked with, meanwhile, is guiding his company forward. It’s sailing in rough seas, but he isn’t battening down the hatches. And he seems to relish the weather.
