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One of the sad truths that the book tries to confront about the world we live in today: that most companies simply fail the test of succession. This does not ha
by eries 4mo ago
One of the sad truths that the book tries to confront about the world we live in today: that most companies simply fail the test of succession. This does not have to be the reality that we live in. It is absolutely 100% possible to build organizations to resist gravity and even to transform organizations that have fallen into its clutches. The fact that this is rare tells you something about the incentive design and values of our current financial system. This is not a law of nature.
I don't really think there's a short way for me to answer this question without having to summarize the entire book. This is what it's about. I'll simply say that the second part of the book, what I call "The Blueprint," is about both the governance and leadership tools that we have available to us to turn these organizations into the long-term, mission-driven, incorruptible places we all want to work at.
- mehulashah 4mo agoTo be clear: yes, it’s possible, it’s not too late. Read the book.
- zaphar 4mo agoLike a lot of things, bad actors only have to get you to fail the test of succession once while the company has to succeed at it every time. Time is not on any companies side here and the longer it goes the more failing that test of succession starts to look like a law of nature.
- eries 4mo agoThat's true, and yet the evidence shows that some companies have been able to do it. I think there's something to be learned by studying those companies as a data set.
- zaphar 4mo agoThey have been able to "so far". This isn't to say that we shouldn't learn from them how to push the failure date as far into the future as you can. I just don't think you can truly make something incorruptible.
- rjrinffj284 4mo agoIt’s perhaps idealistic, but maybe we’ll figure out a way to limit the blast radius of any failures by driving a culture that rewards those that push out the future date as you say
- mgfist 4mo agoThat's where competition and creative destruction comes to play.
- eries 4mo agoincorruptible does not mean immortal, fwiw I appreciate you engaging with the argument in good faith and I look forward to hearing what you think of the book if you do decide to read it.
- Andrex 4mo agoUltimately, nothing lasts forever and entropy takes all. Thinking about this problem and extending the average company life seem like worthwhile endeavors while we're trapped on this ball of mud.
- eries 4mo agoamen
- deleted 4mo ago[deleted]
- Andrex 4mo agoI've always admired Nintendo (NCL) for adequately managing their various successions, even in the case of sudden death (Satoru Iwata). I wish there were deep dives into their practices but they're very secretive.
- eries 4mo agoI would love to learn more about it, too