"An aggressive willingness to compete with the competitors" is the only way to survive in today's competitive globalized business environment. For a company, a competitive mind-set is essential to prosper, compete and survive. The article talks about various facets of competitiveness taking insights from Jim Collins and Donald Sull. It also discusses the importance of a good leader and leadership styles in dealing with the tough times in business.
Competitiveness is a state of mind. More specifically, it's a direct function of the state of the leader's mind. There are many factors that influence competitivenessthe laws of the land, government policies, infrastructure, access to easy finance and resources. Yet none of these has as direct and significant impact on the competitive advantage an organization carves for itself, as the mindset of its leadership.
So much of management literature attests to that fact. A few months ago, I had a chance to interview Jim Collins, the best selling author of Built to Last and Good to Great. Mostly the conversation related to Collins research and findings in the two books. In both books, Collins' chose a unique methodology to explore the million-dollar questions that nag every business leader: what really sets apart a great company? What distinguishes companies that outlast and outperform their competitors not just by a few times but by an order of magnitude? In other words, what makes one organization more competitive than the other?
The criterion for "greatness" in Good to Great was that the company should have achieved a cumulative stock return of at least three times the general market from the point of transition to greatness through fifteen years. Collins and his team of researchers then used this criterion to trawl through listings of Fortune 500 companies going back to 1965, when the list first started. Only eleven companies out of all, made the cut. |
