Corporate turnaround failure: is the proper diagnosis transgenerational response?

Abstract

Could there be a hidden cause of chronic failure in a corporation, where over many years multiple CEOs and new strategies can’t revitalize the firm after a past painful stumble? An emerging theory is that the persistent after effects of a cultural, managerial or economic trauma can cripple an organization’s serial turnaround attempts. But the conventional approach by business executives and management consultants is to treat every problematic corporate rehabilitation as a routine “turnaround case.” In fact, some organizations exhibiting chronic underperformance may actually be suffering from the residual effects of a crisis event that occurred a number of years previously. To identify such hidden trauma, corporate leaders should consider applying a thought-provoking concept from the field of Epigenetics to better understand chronic turnaround cases.