Playing the long game. Building something that lasts, Creating Centurion companies. Centurion companies are 100-year-plus companies. Companies with enduring strength, tenacity, agility, resilience, and strategic longevity. In a world where half of all businesses fail within the first five years and where we have an average attention span of less than 10 seconds, “The Long Game: A Playbook of the World’s Most Enduring Companies” is a breath of fresh air.
Covering very sound advice
- The importance of the founding story
- Understanding critical moments of truth
- Converging right timing, the right people, the right guidance
- Integrity, dependability, transparency and value as fundamental parts of the DNA
- The four P’s: persistence, perseverance, passion, and preparedness.
- Committing to exceeding expectations.
- Instilling the “long eye”.
- Succession planning.
- Creating an ethical will.
- Cultivating a collective sense of purpose.
- Having a solid, stable core. Know your centre.
- Maintaining the disruptive edge.
- Create a constant sense of urgency.
- Truth and clarity.
- Learning from the past.
- Honouring traditions.
- Differentiate perception from reality.
- Embrace disruption.
- Empowering your workforce .
- Creating and defining your culture from day one. It comes down to four key attributes: guiding principles, authenticity, repetition, and ownership.
- Hiring based on cultural fit.
- Embracing technology.
- Focusing on brand building and harnessing the emotional connections between you and your customers so they remain loyal.
- Building a community.
- Focusing on stewardship and protecting the company’s legacy
- Leadership (not a position to be held, but a trust to be earned and upheld).
- Cultivating connections.
- Emphasising sustainability over immediate profit maximisation.
- Embracing digital transformation.
- Being mission-driven.
- Not going public and remaining private.
Embrace the Centurion’s lens
I write and talk a lot about situational awareness and creating a strategic filter to remain future-fit. Centurions have that lens. They think in terms of one-hundred- or two-hundred-year time horizons. They have a long-term vision and a framework for a broader, future-focused plan. They shift their focus from immediate pressures to long-term vision, enabling the business to weather short-term crises while pursuing enduring goals. The beauty of adopting a hundred-year horizon is that it encourages leaders to understand that even our strongest current offerings won’t remain so indefinitely.
Do not forget the short-term horizon
Investing in a long-term perspective is more valuable than ever. However, you cannot rely on planning one hundred years into the future. Do not even focus on the next 10 years. The rapid pace of technological change has dramatically shifted time horizons. Today, planning for two or three years is considered a long-term outlook. Therefore, in an era of constant change, flexibility becomes crucial.
Reinvention is the core competency
Organisations that achieve long-term sustainability consistently engage in this iterative process of transformation. As the business landscape evolves, a commitment to innovation and strategic adaptation positions a company well for long-term success. Sustained relevance relies on its ability to embrace change, making reinvention not just a strategy but a core competency essential for the long run.
Japan as the example
In Japan, businesses focus on longevity through strategic succession. There are so many businesses in Japan that are over a hundred years old—52,000 as of 2023—that they have a word for it: “shinise,” which translates quite literally as “old shop.” In a country where over 90% of businesses remain family-owned, Japanese business culture is infused with the principle of continuity from day one, instilling a blend of responsibility and foresight that ensures a business is passed down through generations. In Japan, closing or selling a company is often seen as a failure, a sentiment deeply ingrained in cultural values. Japan’s commitment to maintaining established firms highlights a dedication to long-term stability and intergenerational legacy.
Check out https://www.henokiens.com/
Today’s Henokiens must meet a two-hundred-year longevity requirement, with management or board representation by a descendant of the founder. Membership in the Henokiens Association is determined not by corporate power but by a company’s enduring stability. As a result, the association includes a diverse range of businesses, from globally recognised names to less prominent ones, all united by their solid, long-standing foundation. They strive to engage the next generation of leaders by showcasing how their venerable family businesses have perpetually Their unique backgrounds share common values that unite them, such as respect for product quality, human relationships, and shared expertise across generations.
Leave a long-term mark
We can all take a page out of the Japanese and Henokien playbooks. They operate with a long lens, planning not just for the next few decades but for several centuries, demonstrating a profound commitment to sustainability and foresight. The wisdom of the long game is not just about surviving; it’s about thriving, innovating, and leaving an indelible mark on the future.
