New book by Haskayne Dean Jim Dewald a wake-up call to CEO and business leaders

An interesting thing happens to many businesses after they taste success. After years of startup pain — long hours, no recognition, and the constant need to prove themselves — they seek stability and tend to avoid risk. While it may be understandable, it’s also dangerous to the long-term health of their company.

Haskayne School of Business Dean Jim Dewald has spent years studying what makes businesses successful in the long run and has published a new book, Achieving Longevity, to argue that a culture of entrepreneurial thinking is essential to long-term survival.

“I needed to write this book because I am concerned that businesses in general, and business leaders in particular, have lost touch with the all-important entrepreneurial spirit that drove growth and prosperity in the past,” says Dewald.

Warning not to weed out innovation

In the book, Dewald says business leaders put too much emphasis on efficiency and commoditization rather than innovation.

“Because of an unwavering focus on efficiency, all too many firms have stripped away excess resources, reducing or eliminating their capacity to innovate, and weeding out the entrepreneurial skills that created the initial success,” Dewald warns.

This makes them vulnerable to disruptive change and eventually leads to their decline.

“The long-term survival of a firm depends on its ability to engage corporate entrepreneurship to adapt to changing markets, technologies and/or social-cultural factors,” he explains.

“However, although most existing corporations have almost everything an individual entrepreneur seeks in pursuit of success — money, brainpower, leadership capabilities, sales channels, research facilities, customers, status — corporate entrepreneurship is actually quite rare.”

Recommended resource for creative leaders

The book is getting noticed. It was reviewed in BizEd magazine, CEO Magazine and in Forbes, which also named it one of 17 Summer Books Creative Leaders Can Read at the Beach.

“Jim’s case is so compelling, you’ll wonder why anyone would build a business that didn’t inspire entrepreneurship and innovation at every level,” writes W. Brett Wilson in the book’s foreword.

In the book, Dewald draws on his own business experience as well as his analysis of recent research and his study of firms that have stood the test of time — including Honda, IBM, Nucor Steel, 3M, and others — to present a framework that organizations can use to develop their own paths to longevity through corporate entrepreneurship.

He is also aware of the role that business schools have played in perpetuating this kind of thinking. Business schools teach management theory, which is grounded in careful scholarly observation of firms in the business world.

Danger of teaching dominant business models

“We form theories and teach our students what we have learned. By following observed dominant models, management theory becomes a force that promotes rigidity and stifles paradigm-shifting innovation. Some theories tend to be a powerful driver for status quo with a focus on efficiency. We need to be careful to not teach our graduates to do more of the same if it doesn’t lead to longevity,” he says.

The book is a carefully researched call-to-action to change the way business leaders perceive their roles and run their organizations. It also provides sound advice for business schools wanting to incorporate entrepreneurial thinking into their curriculum, including an overview of the recent changes made to the Haskayne B.Comm. and MBA programs.

He writes, “I want to celebrate the power of entrepreneurship in a team setting, where people combine their passion to form organizations and work collaboratively to build a sustainable difference in the lives of others . . . Doing so gives meaning to life itself. This is why I am passionate about entrepreneurial thinking.”