Firms fail through the amplification of the very strength that made them succeed.
Miller's 1990 study of failed firms: the craftsman becomes obsessed with quality, the builder over-expands, the pioneer over-innovates. Each was doing more of what had worked.
In practice
- A firm celebrated for engineering rigour ships nothing, because the rigour that made it good has become the whole of the culture.
- A restaurant known for a demanding chef closes when the demandingness that produced the standard drives out everyone who could meet it.
- Standing
- The organisational form of Flanderization.
- Further reading
- Wikipedia
- Subject
- Organizations & Bureaucracy
- Essay
- Why organisations learn, harden and decline