Centennials

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What to expect

Brought to you by Penguin.

Start-ups rarely survive their second birthday. Even established firms in the UK and the US average a life of only fifteen years. So how can your company build and sustain success for decades to come?

Professor Alex Hill has conducted seven years of groundbreaking research into a clutch of organisations that have outperformed their peers for over 100 years - from NASA to the New Zealand All Blacks, from Eton College and the Royal College of Arts to the Royal Marines and the Royal Shakespeare Company. And what he has found is that these very different organisations all share remarkably similar strategies when it comes to building and maintaining excellence and success - strategies that frequently fly in the face of conventional business wisdom.

Here Professor Hill shares the twelve traits that have set these organisations apart for over a century, from the way they analyse success and failure to their approach to finding the best people and the brightest new ideas. In so doing, he identifies the strategies and habits that you can employ in your company to create a strong and stable core and to ensure the same long-term prosperity. In short, he shows you how to build a promising enterprise into an enduring, great organisation.

©2023 Professor Alex Hill (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critics Review

  • An instant classic.

    Charles Handy, author of 'The Empty Raincoat' and 'The Second Curve'

  • If you want to know why some businesses succeed beyond expectation and others incomprehensibly fail, the answer is here. Every CEO should be given a copy with their morning coffee.

    Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at the University of Oxford

  • Most people think in straight lines. A leads to B. Alex thinks sideways, and comes up with intuitions few will spot, but which are obvious and readily applicable. That is what makes this book both useful, and a joy to read.

    Tim Leunig, former economic adviser to the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer

  • Brilliantly clear, concise and readable. Both a window into centennial organisations and an incredibly helpful strategic toolkit for sustaining and developing them.

    Lucy Skilbeck, Director of Actor Training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

  • If you want to learn what it takes to achieve truly sustainable success in an organisation, then this is a book for you. The examples of organisations which have stood the test of time and, frankly, those which haven’t, are illuminating because of the fundamental features which Alex has uncovered. This book will be of value to not just those who are contemplating setting up a new venture, but also to those who are temporary custodians of existing great organisations and whose ultimate goal must surely be to add value.

    Shaun Fitzgerald, OBE, Director of the Centre for Climate Repair at the University of Cambridge

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