That’s the question posed to Jim Collins (best-selling author of ‘Good to Great’, ‘Built to Last’, etc.) that became the inspiration for his latest book, How the Mighty Fall.
In the cover story of the May 25th edition of Business Week, Collins identifies the FIVE STAGES of corporate decline, and how organizations at (almost) any stage can identify where they are and correct. In the article, Collins goes into these in greater depth, but here they are briefly:
• STAGE 1: HUBRIS BORN OF SUCCESS, or success borne from entitlement. In this stage, companies attribute their success to their knowledge and ‘smarts’, failing to understand the real reasons why they have done so well, including the acknowledgement of luck and chance.
• STAGE 2: UNDISCIPLINED PURSUIT OF MORE. Here companies begin to compromise on their values or lose sight of who they really are, in the pursuit of the latest ‘big’ thing. In this stage, expansion is undisciplined and few (if any) restrictions are put on adding more and more infrastructure and resources.
• STAGE 3: DENIAL OF RISK AND PERIL, which begins when warning signs begin to appear, but are discounted. Positive data is amplified and ambiguous data is either neutralized or looked at in its most positive light. The light at the end of the tunnel is daylight ahead for sure. Another sign of this stage is when leaders choose to blame external factors for failures versus accepting responsibility.
• STAGE 4: GRASPING FOR SALVATION, or grasping for the ‘silver bullet’ solution. By then the signals of decline are visible to all and the company jolts around reactively In some cases, they bring in a high profile CEO to turn things around; in others, a bold new product or ‘life-saving’ acquisition (think AOL/Times Warner). Here Collins believes the solution is not more but less – he says, “If you want to reverse decline, be rigorous about what not to do”.
• STAGE 5: CAPITULATION TO IRRELEVANCE OR DEATH, when the continuous setbacks and false starts become too much, and the organization loses its spirit, becomes irrelevant or, in the most extreme cases, is gone forever.
According to Collins, while it is possible to survive and even thrive from the depths of Stage 4 (“Our research indicates that organizational decline is largely self-inflicted, and recovery largely within our own control”), once an organization gets to Stage 5, there is no turning back.
When you think about the challenges/opportunities your organization is currently facing, how would you know…?
Cheers,
Amelia
P.S. At the end of the article, Collins uses Ann Mulcahy as an example of a leader who pulled her company out of the depths of Stage 4, when most had given Xerox up as lost. See my previous blog for some additional perspectives on how she did it.