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Foreword by Don Valentine, Founder and Principal Partner, Sequoia Capital
Going the Distance is the first systematic guide to overcoming the perils that can cripple even the most dominant companies?and to sustaining market leadership for years, even decades.
Former Cisco SVP/current Openwave COO Kevin Kennedy and organizational consultant Mary Moore focus on complexity as the #1 challenge to long-term success. They identify eight predictable challenges bred by complexity, showing how each company?s response to these challenges will drive a future of either failure or sustained dominance.
For each challenge, Kennedy and Moore list vital signs or leading indicators designed to help managers and investors evaluate the health of any corporation?and formulate effective strategies for both prevention and recovery.
Anticipating fire before you get burnedSeeing trouble a mile away?and changing course to avoid it Learning and alignment: The antidotes to corporate arteriosclerosisKeeping your company alert to the world around it Leadership DNA: Developing the next generations of leadersPromoting leaders for today, tomorrow, and decades to come Healthy leadership, healthy structure, healthy business modelsPrevention and early detection for corporate ?killer diseases? Inventing the next great companyNew financial and management models for long-term dominance
Kennedy and Moore have spent more than 50 combined years living the challenges and solutions discussed in this book, in both large and small companies with widely diverse cultures, leadership, and markets.
Why do most great companies eventually fail? More important, why do a few beat the odds?and reach dominance or continue dominance for generations? In Going the Distance, Kevin Kennedy and Mary Moore identify the eight key obstacles to the long-term success of great businesses?and how to overcome them.
?Moore and Kennedy capture exactly what is unique about Cisco System?s success as a growth model. Unlike many leaders who either froze in place or thrashed back and forth as complexity rose with growth, the authors show us how Cisco turned what could have become a perfect storm into competitive advantage. Going the Distance offers managers a concise framework to identify and gain advantage from these same challenges in their own companies.?
?Christopher Meyer, Ph.D., author of Fast Cycle Time and Relentless Growth
?This is a rare book on management that offers lessons applicable to leadership excellence in a broad range of organizations.?
?Francis L. Lawrence, President Emeritus, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
?Growing a company is a complex business. This wonderful book can act as a guide, showing how to manage that complexity and transform it from a problem into a strategic advantage. For those of us who?ve learned some of these lessons the hard way, Moore and Kennedy?s book provides an invaluable framework and fills in the gaps. Anybody who wants to build a world-class business should have a close look at this book.?
?Jerry Fiddler, Founder and Chairman, Wind River
?Going the Distance provides real insight into what makes some companies prosper from startup to industry leader, while others fall off the track before they get there. If you want to avoid the pitfalls and take your company the distance without the suffering the inevitable trials that growth and complexity bring, this is required reading. I wish I had the benefit of this book as a new CEO.?
?Michael Brown, Chairman, Quantum Corporation