To me it was so natural that companies should seek their own survival. I had seen nothing else in my life. Companies struggle to keep going and to gr… - Arie de Geus

Some years ago, the planning group at Shell surveyed 30 companies that had been in business for more than 75 years. What impressed us most was their ability to live in harmony with the business environment, to switch from a survival mode when times were turbulent to a self-development mode when the pace of change was slow. And this pattern rang a familiar bell because Shell’s history is similarly replete with switches from expansion to self-preservation and back again to growth.

The ability to learn faster than competitors may be the only sustainable competitive advantage.

Companies die because their managers focus on the economic activity of producing goods and services, and they forget that their organizations' true nature is that of a community of humans.