Revival of the Fittest: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Managers Remake Them

Revival of the Fittest: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Managers Remake Them. By Donald N. Sull. Harvard Business School Press. $29.95.

It seems only natural that a "Vito Corleone Diagnostic Test," in homage of the movie The Godfather, should appear in a book about "making, managing and remaking managerial commitments effectively." How else are you going to "identify the known and trusted as sources of danger?"

In his debut book, Harvard professor Donald Sull proposes his own rather revolutionary theory on natural selection in today's increasingly dangerous climate of corporate failure. He argues that a company, ironically, sets itself up for future failures during its most flourishing periods. By relying too heavily on a company's founding success formula, or set of defining commitments that initially proved successful, managers oftentimes fail to adapt to the continually changing marketplace. Simply put, they get trapped by their own past successes.

Sull lists eight risk factors to help managers identify this state of "active inertia," including the CEO who writes a book or appears on the cover of a major business magazine, management gurus pronouncing a company as outstanding, and top executives having similar backgrounds and physical appearances. Managers would typically be proud to boast about most, if not all of these factors, but Sull is quick to state that companies exhibiting even two of the eight should be nervous. Success and routine can harden a manager's ability to respond to shifts in the environment. "Active inertia creeps up like a receding hairline," Sull warns.

After determining if their companies are in need of transformation, managers must be willing to take bold and risky chances to change old commitments into future profit and, ultimately, the next revival. Sull plots this process throughout each of the nine chapters with to-the-point opening and concluding summaries accompanied by an array of eye-catching charts, boxes, figures, diagnostic tests and asides on related topics. The strongest sections, and majority of the text, are the extensive, how-to illustrations of real-life companies that lend a tangible quality to Sull's somewhat abstract ideas. He draws from a varied pool of case studies, ranging from the failings of Firestone Tire & Rubber Co. to the success of Japan's Asahi Breweries.

In the final chapter, "The Private Side of Public Commitments," managers are beckoned to take a slightly more optimistic version of The Godfather test. Sull concludes the book with "The George Bailey Test," from It's A Wonderful Life, which answers the question every successful person must ask before embarking out into the world, "What would happen if I didn't commit to a major transformation?"

Copyright Trails Media Group Aug 2003
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