Avoiding The Slippery Slope of High Performance
Dave Hanna
HPO Global Alliance
Many organizations are on the endangered species list in this 21st century.This is not a personal opinion, but a statement of fact based on patterns of the past 100 years.
An Endangered Species
For starters, condider this question: what do the following companies have in common?
- Cambria Steel
- Guggenheim Exploration
- Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal
- Intercontinental Rubber
- Schwarzchild and Sulzberger
- Central LeatherEach of these institutions was one of the top 100 U.S. firms in 19091, but none exists today as an independent entity.They are either out of business or a very minor player in some larger corporation. Some were quite large in their glory days (Central Leather was number seven on the 1909 list). Unfortunately, they were not able to maintain their success. In a few management generations they have disappeared.
These six are certainly not unusual: of the top 100 U.S. industrial firms in 1909, only 14 are still in the elite group today. Only 23 are still around at all!
Now fast forward to today’s Fortune Top 100 list….
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