Wednesday, February 13, 2013

What is the greatest enemy of success?

From Fortune by Anne Fisher | February 5, 2013

What is the greatest hindrance to success?

It is success.  Companies that are successful tend to be complacent.  They are overcome with overconfidence and hubris.  And with hubris comes downfall.  Markets change, customer preferences change and one must be quick and humble  to recognize these changes.  Those with management pride in their products (and who praise "yesterday") follow this trip to the south...
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This observation comes from the book of Girard Tellis , Unrelenting Innovation  Successful companies leaders are blinded by their current success to the next innovation (I heard this from the story of Pocketbell from Rowen Untiveros who used to be its chief marketing officer.  They thought that pager is forever,and did not invest in CP technology when they had the capability to invest. It is also true for Nokia, which is now a  has been.)

Tellis teaches management of University of Southern California and heads the Center for Global Innovation.

What counts in innovative companies are not the number of innovation but:  future, forward looking mindset,  a culture of innovation ie:   risk taking,  an eagerness to reward fresh thinking.

The market also rewards internal organic innovation;   acquiring a new company punishes the acquired and the acquiring company, as in the case of E-bay's acquisition of Skype.

Going back to Kodak, it is now bankrupt despite its leadership in digital technology.  It had culture of stagnation despite the number of its patents.

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