The average life expectancy of a company on the S&P 500 is less than half of what it was 60 years ago. How have some companies managed to adapt and evolve while others have gone by the wayside?

Today we speak with Charles O’Reilly, professor at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. He is also the co-author of several books including Lead And Disrupt: How To Solve The Innovator's Dilemma.

In this episode, we’ll hear more from Charles about what makes a successful leader, how large companies can choose to innovate, and how to avoid complacency in the face of success.

On the role of leaders:

“The role of a leader in an organization, especially in the CEO senior team, is to make sure that the company is successful today, but it's also successful in the future. So, to paraphrase the old Goldman Sachs, they ought to be long-term greedy and they ought to be able to leverage assets and capabilities to move into a new direction.”

On the responsibility of leaders to adapt in a changing marketplace:

“I think from a high level, economic perspective, the argument is... that economies are better off if the weak are weeded out and the strong persist. If you put yourself in the position of a leader, a CEO, your job is not to be

Kevorkian and help the company die. Your job... is to understand what the assets and capabilities are that that might be useful and profitable in new businesses.”

On how successful companies evolve and innovate:

“So there are really three things that have to happen. And that is ideation, incubation, and scaling. And these are three disciplines, there has to be a disciplined process to come up with new ideas or you're right, you won't generate ideas.

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