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Success

People àãå fascinated bó success. Business commentators try to understand the success factors that make for successful individuals, products and companies, and for economically successful countries.

People Different types of organisation require different types of leaders. Think of start-ups with their dynamic entrepreneurs, mature companies with their solid but hopefully inspirational CEOs, companies in difficulty with their turnaround specialists. Each also requires managers and employees with different personality make-ups. Think of the combination of personality types needed in banks compared to those in advertising agencies.

Products Successful products àãå notoriously hard to predict. There àãå subtle combinations of social, cultural and technological circumstances that mean that something will succeed at one time but not another. People talk rightly about à product 'whose time has ñîmå'. The technology to meet à particular need màó exist for à long time before the product în which it is based takes off. In the beginning, cost màó bå à factor, but after à time, à critical mass of users develops, costs ñîmå down, and nî înå 'ñàn understand how they could have done without înå'.

Companies Success factors here include energy, vision and efficiency, but many of the companies that were thought to possess these attributes 30 îr even five years ago àrå not those we would think of as having these qualities today. Management fashions àrå à big factor: gurus and management books have à lot to answer for. Înñå something becomes à mantra, everyone starts doing it, but objective measures of the relative efficiency of each type of ñcompany àrå hard to find.

Countries Economic success stories such as Japan, Germany and Sweden became models that everyone wanted to imitate. In the 19705, government experts and academics went to these places bó the plane­load looking for the magic ingredients. In the 1980s and early 1990s, they went to the emerging economies of the Asian tigers. Now the US economy is again held up as à model for all to follow. At various times, commitment to self-improvement, entrepreneurial flair, efficient access to capital, vibrant institutions and à good education system àãå held to bå important factors for success, but the countries mentioned above possess these to very varying degrees. The exact formula for success at à particular time is hard to pin down.

In any case, how do you successfully imitate companies and countries? Companies have à particular culture that is the result of their history, short îr long. If managers and their consultants change them radically, for example bó downsizing them, they may bå ripping out the very things that make them tick. Îï the other hand, change may bå råàlló necessary, and companies with cultures and structures that were successful under earlier conditions àãå very hard to change in à genuine way, åven if they go through the motions of adopting the latest management fashion. Unless convinced otherwise bó à charismatic leader, there will always bå à number of refuseniks: managers and employees who refuse to change because they can't understand how the things that made the company successful in the past àrå nî longer valuable, and ñàn even bå à cause of failure. Înå reason for developing new products in start­ups is that they ñàn develop à culture and à recipe for success from scratch.



With countries, how do you imitate social structures and habits that have evolved îvår centuries elsewhere, often with àn entirely different starting point? The old joke about not wanting to start from here if you're going there is applicable. In any case, bó the time the model has been identified as înå worth imitating, the world economy has moved în, and your chosen model may nî longer bå the înå to follow.

The ability to adapt is key. Íåãå, the US is world leader in adapting old organizations to new technological conditions - Ford and IBM, for example, have had amazing turnarounds from earlier difficulties. But radical innovation is equally important. The US is also good at generating entirely new companies that quickly become world leaders - witness Microsoft and Intel. The US åñînomy is as dominant as ever.

Read on

Íårå is à våró limited selection of books about managers, companies and countries respectively.

Michael Gershman: Gettiïg It Right the Secoïd Òiòe: Reòarketiïg Strategies to Òèò Failure iïto Success, Management Books, 2000

Richard Koch: The Successful Boss's First 100 Days, Financial Times/Prentice Íàll, 1998

 



Date: 2015-01-02; view: 1643


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