Camp and the latest book by Jim Collins. “Why The Mighty Fall”

Last night, I attended a Q&A session sponsored by Business Week Magazine.  One of Business Week’s senior editors spent over an hour asking Mr. Collins about his new book discussing how and why great companies fail.  It occurred to me that camps, more than almost any other enterprise, go from good to great to failure over the course of a number of years.  The “good to great” phase usually takes 3 to 5 years followed by sustained greatness of 10 – 30 years, followed, many times, by failure.  The reasons for failure are numerous and perhaps Mr. Collins’ new work will shed some light.   Last night, Mr. Collins said that complacency is generally not the cause of failure.  Companies that fail spend a lot of time trying to innovate.  However, their innovations tend to be outside of their core competency.  I confess that I have yet to read the book, but my hunch is that companies fail not for failure to innovate but for failure to innovate within their core competency.  Once they become great at what they do, they don’t look hard enough at what they do to figure out how to do it better.  By contrast, the great camps never cease to try and get better in every area – whether it be staffing, program, facilities or technology.  They never accept that they are good enough.  The world is changing.  What worked 10 or 20 years ago will not work tomorrow, or may work tomorrow but will not work 20 years from now.  Correspondingly, those that fail generally keep close tabs on the camp’s operations, never truly inviting younger associates into their inner circle.  This insulates them from new, novel ideas and further leads them down the path to ruin.  Eventually, the camp falls off the cliff and either gets purchased for real estate, or, hopefully, gets purchased by a new operator and the cycle begins again. 

Business is cyclical.  Growth is followed by recession.  Seldom, throughout history, have we seen periods of sustained growth lasting more than 10 years.  Why should we expect a camp, which is, after all a business, to remain at the top of its game for 30 years under the same leadership?  The enlightened leader recognizes that he can not lead forever.   He may well have valuable roles to play and contributions to make, but, if he truly loves his camp, he should step down and transition out before the inevitable downturn destroys his camp.

visit http://www.jimcollins.com for more information about Mr. Collins, who I consider the greatest business writer of the 21st Century.  Peter Drucker takes the 20th.