Economic uncertainty is ‘tremendously positive’: Jim Collins; “We are returning to normal. Normal is chaos, disruption, uncertainty and change. That’s actually the human condition.”
July 18, 2013 Leave a comment
Economic uncertainty is ‘tremendously positive’: Jim Collins
PUBLISHED: 3 HOURS 59 MINUTES AGO | UPDATE: 3 HOURS 2 MINUTES AGO
The turbulence is likely to gather pace, with technology and globalisation acting as accelerators to speed up the boom and bust cycles. Photo: Reuters
JAMES THOMSON
Jim Collins starts with a history lesson that will send chills down the spines of entrepreneurs and executives struggling with the chaos and turmoil of the past five years. “In the developed world, we grew up in a period of very unusual stability and prosperity. Obviously there were disruptions – fuel shocks etcetera – but from the 1950s up until around 2000, it was a period of stability and prosperity,” he tells me from his New York office. Collins, the highly regarded management thinker, consultant and researcher famous for books including Built to Last and Good to Great, says the lesson from his most recent work, Great by Choice, is that the longer sweep of human history is not marked by lengthy periods of prosperity. “We are returning to normal. Normal is chaos, disruption, uncertainty and change. That’s actually the human condition.”The turbulence is likely to gather pace, with technology and globalisation acting as accelerators to speed up the boom and bust cycles. “Welcome, in all likelihood, to the rest of our lives.”
It sounds ugly and Collins admits for many companies, it will be. But with turbulence comes great opportunity.
“If you are mediocre, you should be scared. But if you are exceptional, you should view it as a tremendously positive time.
“In the past, trying to build a great company might have been an option rather than a necessity. Now, you either need to hit the standards that would make you great or you are not going to do very well at all.”
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