A Vistage speaker once told my CEO Groups that the “The second worst thing that can happen to a company is success.” He meant that it could seduce CEOs into thinking that it was permanent, and the company was immune to change. Or as Bill Gates one warned “Success is a lousy teacher. It seduces smart people into thinking they can’t lose.”
This has been especially true of the retail sector in the past fifty years which was turned upside down first by Wal-Mart and then by Amazon. Those who could not re-invent themselves did not survive. Most did not, because re-invention is hard; really hard.
One retailer which preceded Wal-Mart and Amazon managed to do so and its story deserves the attention of every CEO against the day he or she must re-invent their own enterprise. “Can Companies Re-Invent Themselves?”
