Enduring Business Excellence

Fortune Magazine recently published an article by management expert Jim Collins entitled "The Secret of Enduring Greatness."

Lessons learned:

• The most significant business innovation of the past 200 years: systematic management development.
• Just because a company stumbles - or gets smacked upside the head by an unexpected event or new challenge - does not mean that it must continue to decline.
• Companies do not fall primarily because of what the world does to them or because of how the world changes around them; they fall first and foremost because of what they do to themselves.
• When you've built an institution with values and a purpose beyond just making money - when you've built a culture that makes a distinctive contribution while delivering exceptional results - why would you surrender to the forces of mediocrity and succumb to irrelevance?