~ he fabled strategies to which they credit their success. Pro-
Icarus of ductive attention to detail, for instance, turns into The old story of Icarus 1 Greek mythol- an obsession with minutiae; rewarding innova- ogy is said to have tion escalates into gratuitous invention; and mea- can still teach us n e w flown so high, s o sured growth becomes unbridled expansion. In c l o s e to the sun, that contrast, activities that were merely de-empha- lessons in the dynamics his artificial wax s i z e d - n o t viewed as integral to the recipe for wings melted and he success--are virtually extinguished. Modest mar- of corporate success, plunged to his death keting deteriorates into lackluster promotion and decline, a n d renewal. in the Aegean Sea. inadequate distribution; tolerable engineering The power of Icarus's becomes shoddy design. The result: strategies m wings gave rise to the become less balanced. They center more and abandon that so d o o m e d him. The paradox, of more around a single core strength that is ampli- course, is that his greatest asset led to his demise. fied unduly while other aspects are forgotten And that same paradox applies to many outstand- almost entirely. ing companies: their victories and their strengths Such changes are not limited to strategy. The s o often seduce them into the excesses that cause heroes who shaped the winning formula gain their downfall. Success leads to specialization and adulation and absolute authority, while others exaggeration, to confidence and complacency, to drop to third-class citizenship. An increasingly dogma and ritual. This general tendency, its monolithic culture impels firms to focus on an causes, and how to manage it are what this ar- ever smaller set of considerations and to rally ticle is all about. around a narrowing path to victory. Reporting It is ironic that many of the most dramatically relationships, roles, programs, decision-making successful organizations are so prone to failure. processes---even target markets--come to reflect The histories of outstanding companies demon- and serve the central strategy and nothing else. strate this time and again. In fact, it appears that And policies are converted into rigid laws and w h e n taken to excess the same things that drive rituals by avidly embraced credos and ideologies. success--focused, tried-and-true strategies, confi- By then, organizational learning has ceased, tun- dent leadership, galvanized corporate cultures, nel vision rules, and flexibility is lost. and especially the interplay of all these ele- This riches-to-rags scenario seduces some of m e n t s - a l s o cause decline. Robust, superior orga- our most acclaimed corporations; and in our nizations evolve into flawed purebreds; they research on outstanding companies we have move from rich character to exaggerated carica- found four principal examples of it, four very ture as all subtlety, all nuance, is gradually lost. c o m m o n "trajectories" of decline (see F i g u r e 1): Many outstanding organizations follow such • The focusing trajectory takes punctilious, paths of deadly m o m e n t u m - - t i m e - b o m b trajecto- quality-driven CRAFTSMEN organizations with ries of attitudes, policies, and events that lead to their masterful engineers and airtight operations, falling sales, plummeting profits, even bank- and turns them into rigidly controlled, detail- ruptcy. These companies extend and amplify the obsessed T I N K E R E R S - - f i r m s w h o s e insular, tech-