Feser - Serial innovators: firms that change the world

Additional Praise For

Serial Innovators

Serial Innovators deals with the fascinating problem of corporate aging and survival. Older firms have lower profitability and higher costs, they command smaller market shares, and have poorer governance, on average. The puzzle is why they are unable to reinvent themselves. Unlike many earlier books addressing this issue, Serial Innovators reviews the insights generated in various academic fields and uses that information to offer solutions. The result is a truly inspiring read.

Claudio Loderer
Professor, Institut fr Finanzmanagement
University of Berne, Switzerland

Serial Innovators is a book about the leadership legacies that help firms create lasting value. It is two books in one: a book about the firms that survive for long periods, how they innovate, and how they adapt to changing markets; and also the fascinating story of a new CEO and his efforts to lead his firm through new challenges and to keep his life in balance. It is about how leaders can become better leaders. Nothing more important to read these days.

Mario Greco
Chief Executive Officer, General Insurance
Zurich Financial Services Ltd

One of the great mysteries of business and economics is why high performance is so fleeting. Why, like empires, do companies rise to great success, and then fall when they fail to adapt to changes in their environment? In this engaging book, Claudio Feser sheds new light on this age-old question. He finds that there are a few companiesserial innovatorsthat beat the odds, bounce back from adversity, innovate, and adapt to ever-changing markets. A must read for business leaders in any industry.

Eric Beinhocker
Author, The Origin of Wealth

How often do you read a book that is academically thorough, utterly practical, entertaining, and inspiring? Drawing on a wide range of research, Serial Innovators tells the story of a young CEO going through both a personal and a company transformation. It is a story of leadership. It is a story of legacy. It is a story of life.

Thomas Gutzwiller
Professor, Executive School of Management,
Technology and Law
University of St. Gallen

Companies are like biological organisms. They are born, they grow, they mature, they age, and they die. For most companies, this cycle is extremely shorta few years. For some its about a generation. But only a few achieve a cycle that mirrors the human life span. This book is about what makes companies go stale and what to do about it. In my capacity as chairman of getAbstract, Ive read thousands of business books. This one is unique. Feser is not only a brilliant business thinker, he is also a great storyteller. Read this book and you will be enlightened.

Rolf Dobelli
Chairman, getAbstract
and Author, Die Kunst des klaren Denkens

Creating shareholder value is not the only raison dtre of corporations, firms, and businesses. Companies should positively impact society and make the world a better place. Its about making life better, safer, and healthier. And its about people and leaders going through personal and professional transformation. This book provides invaluable insights on how to build companies that succeed in todays global, complex, and fast-changing markets.

Bruno Pfister
Chief Executive Officer
Swiss Life Holding Ltd

This work draws on an unusually wide set of disciplinesnew and oldto shed light on the behavior of organizations and their leaders. Embracing complexity and unpredictabilityrather than assuming them away Serial Innovators is a renaissance persons guide to leadership and institution building.

Bill Huyett
Director, McKinsey & Company
and Co-Author, Value

Copyright 2012 by McKinsey & Company. All rights reserved.

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, New Jersey.
Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Feser, Claudio.
Serial innovators : firms that change the world / Claudio Feser.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-118-14992-8 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-17404-3 (ebk);
ISBN 978-1-118-17405-0 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-17406-7 (ebk)
1. Technological innovations. 2. Creative ability in business. I. Title.
HD45.F435 2012
338.064dc23
2011029125

To Evelyne, Dario, and Alessio

Foreword

From time to timenot very oftena book about business offers a genuinely new perspective on issues that confront us all. Serial Innovators is such a book.

Companies are facing a number of challenges: a dynamic market environment with ever increasing competitive pressure; increased shareholder, employee, and community expectations; activist demands; and more severe regulatory requirements. Keeping a large and global organization innovative and adaptive in such a context requires a great deal of professional competence and drive, an understanding of market opportunities and threats, and an understanding of the capabilities and limitations of the organization and of oneself.

Business always implies risk taking, which in turn implies the danger of failing. This means that companies and their leaders are inherently exposed to patterns such as overconfidence, denial, or projections.

One may expect that these defense mechanisms occur only in companies in crisis and not in times of great success. But when there is praise from all sides and no shortage of recognition, companies and their leaders may fall victim to losing their sense of reality. Successful, admired, and praised organizations can easily become self-centered and isolated from external information. Rather than remaining realistic and aware of the fragility of success, their leaders may take praise and admiration at face value, egos get inflated, and expectations exaggerated, which sooner or later inevitably lead to failure.