They are incredibly strategic, looking 20 to 30 years ahead, to understand how society is evolving, how they can shape it, and how they can get the talent to do this. Stable purpose: shape society, engage kids. The Centennials start by stabilizing their core, to safeguard what they stand for and stay on track.
The Stable Core: Purpose, stewardship, openness And that’s what keeps them ahead.įirst, we’ll explain how they do this, and then we’ll look at the 12 tests. They’re radically traditional - with a stable core, but a disruptive edge. Instead, they try to shape society, share experts, create accidents, and focus on getting better not bigger. Most businesses focus on serving customers, owning resources, being efficient and growing - but the Centennials don’t. Surprisingly, we found the Centennials are all very similar to each other, despite their different vocations - and behave in ways that defy conventional wisdom.Īs our findings started to emerge, we shared them with 537 leaders from 84 successful businesses - such as 3M, Apple, the BBC, BMW, Cirque du Soleil, Dyson, GE, Google, Hamlins, HSBC, Jaguar Land Rover, Johnson & Johnson, M&C Saatchi, McKinsey, Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Procter & Gamble, Rolls-Royce Engines, Unilever, Virgin and WPP - to see what they could learn from the Centennials, and we’ve found 12 tests to help organizations sustain success.
THE HUNDRED YEAR WALK SUMMARY SKIN
We got under the skin of each organization, to understand how they live and breathe, by interviewing people who work (or worked) with them, observing them in action and reading everything about them. Then, we spent five years trying to understand what they do, and how they do it. From education, Eton College, from science, NASA (initially part of the US Army), and from sport, the New Zealand All Blacks and British Cycling. From the arts, we looked at the Royal Academy of Music, the Royal College of Art and the Royal Shakespeare Company (originally the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre). To answer these questions, we identified seven celebrated Centennials who’ve outperformed their peers over the last 100 years and are admired by everyone. How do they do it? And what can business learn from them? In stark contrast, organizations in other sectors celebrate their 100th birthday and look like they’ll be here forever. S&P 500 company has fallen by 80% in the last 80 years (from 67 to 15 years), and 76% of UK FTSE 100 companies have disappeared in the last 30 years.
Balancing the radical and the traditional helps them stay on top, decade after decade. The second step is to have a disruptive edge, which involves bringing in outside expertise and learning from other sectors (even ones that seem to have nothing to do with yours).
As part of this, many of the organizations that last 100 years seek to engage society, especially through reaching out to children. They look for leaders who will last 10 years or more, and their leadership transitions usually involve a one-year overlap between outgoing and incoming leaders. First, they have a stable core, or an unchanging organizational purpose. How do they do it? And what can business learn from them? A five year-study of several organizations who have been successful for 100 years or more shows that they do two seemingly incongruous things simultaneously. The average lifespan of a US S&P 500 company has fallen by 80% in the last 80 years (from 67 to 15 years), and 76% of UK FTSE 100 companies have disappeared in the last 30 years.