Essay1
UNIT 4 - SUCCESS
People are fascinated by success. Business commentators try to understand the success factors that make for successful individuals, products and companies, and for economically successful countries.
People
Different types of organisations require different types of leaders. Think of start-ups with their dynamic entrepreneurs, mature companies with their solid but hopefully inspirational CEOs, companies in difficulty with their turnaround specialists. Each also requires managers and employees with different personality make-ups. Think of the combination of personality type needed in banks compared to those in advertising agencies.
Products
Successful products are notoriously hard to predict. There are subtle combinations of social, cultural and technological circumstances that mean that something will succeed at one time but not another. People talk rightly about a product 'whose time has come'. The technology to meet a particular need may exist for a long time before the product on which it is based takes off. For example, photocopying technology was around for years before photocopiers were commercialised on a large scale. In the beginning, cost may be a factor, but after a time a critical mass of users develops, costs come down, and no one 'can understand how they could have done without one'.
Companies
Success factors here include energy, vision and efficiency, but many of the companies that were thought to possess these attributes 30 or even five years ago are not those we would think of as having these qualities today. Management fashions are a big factor: gurus and management books have a lot to answer for. Once something becomes a mantra, everyone starts doing it, but objective measures of the relative efficiency of each type of company are hard to find. Different types of activities require different approaches to deliver strong financial results, the one measure of success that people usually agree on.
Countries
Economic success
People are fascinated by success. Business commentators try to understand the success factors that make for successful individuals, products and companies, and for economically successful countries.
People
Different types of organisations require different types of leaders. Think of start-ups with their dynamic entrepreneurs, mature companies with their solid but hopefully inspirational CEOs, companies in difficulty with their turnaround specialists. Each also requires managers and employees with different personality make-ups. Think of the combination of personality type needed in banks compared to those in advertising agencies.
Products
Successful products are notoriously hard to predict. There are subtle combinations of social, cultural and technological circumstances that mean that something will succeed at one time but not another. People talk rightly about a product 'whose time has come'. The technology to meet a particular need may exist for a long time before the product on which it is based takes off. For example, photocopying technology was around for years before photocopiers were commercialised on a large scale. In the beginning, cost may be a factor, but after a time a critical mass of users develops, costs come down, and no one 'can understand how they could have done without one'.
Companies
Success factors here include energy, vision and efficiency, but many of the companies that were thought to possess these attributes 30 or even five years ago are not those we would think of as having these qualities today. Management fashions are a big factor: gurus and management books have a lot to answer for. Once something becomes a mantra, everyone starts doing it, but objective measures of the relative efficiency of each type of company are hard to find. Different types of activities require different approaches to deliver strong financial results, the one measure of success that people usually agree on.
Countries
Economic success