Book Titles

…in the later stages of decline, companies that change constantly but without any consistent rationale will collapse just as surely as those that change not at all.

…the best corporate leaders… remain students of their work, relentlessly asking questions – why, why, why? And have an incurable compulsion to vacuum the brains of people they meet.

…catastrophic decline can be brought about by driven, intense, hard-working, and creative people.

…hubris can lead to making brash commitments for more and more and more. And then one day, just when you’ve elevated expectations too far, you fall. Hard.

Public corporations face incessant pressure from the capital markets to grow as fast as possible, and we cannot deny this fact.

The greatest leaders do seek growth – growth in performance, growth in distinctive impact, growth in creativity, growth in people – but they do not succumb to growth that undermines long-term value.

…if a great company consistently grows revenues faster than its ability to get enough of the right people to implement that growth, it will not simply stagnate; it will fail.

Any exceptional enterprise depends first and foremost upon having self-managed and self-motivated people – the #1 ingredient for a culture of discipline.

Leaders who fail the process of succession set their enterprises on a path to decline.

…while no leader can single-handedly build an enduring great company, the wrong leader vested with power can almost single-handedly bring a company down. Choose well.