The corporate journey in many ways is very Darwinian. As an enterprise you either grow or you die. There is really no in-between. Over the years, I have found time and again that organizations can quickly become discouraged when their growth plans don’t materialize as they had originally envisioned. In such situations, management is prematurely tempted to pursue growth initiatives that are more distant from their capabilities and, ultimately, more speculative and higher risk. In this book, Ram Charan and Noel Tichy champion the idea that every business has good growth potential and that “staying close to home” with your existing capabilities and with enlightened thinking can unlock new growth potential in most every business. This thinking was particularly helpful to me at both Nabisco and Campbell.

A few years ago, Ram shared some of this thinking with our global leadership team at our annual gathering. It was very well-received.

– D. R. Conant