But there’s also a hopeful story to tell. Companies can sustain greatness for decades, even if only a few do so. What this means is that you never get to the “end” of The Map. You’re never done with the journey. You’re never done with the need for disciplined people who engage in disciplined thought and take disciplined action. You’re never done renewing the company so that it might be built to last. You’re never done preparing for bad luck and capitalizing on good luck, getting a higher return on luck than others. Greatness is an inherently dynamic process, not an end point.

The Map doesn’t guarantee a great outcome. But those who adhere to its principles—and who do so with joyful intensity—have much better odds of building a great company that can endure than those who don’t. Along the way, perhaps as more of a by-product than a goal, they just might find the daily happiness that comes from doing meaningful work with people they truly like and deeply respect. And it’s hard to have a better life than that.

These days, I’m wary of seemingly simple incentive rules that promise amazing results. They are rarely simple, and often leave collateral damage. Usually, a better option is to have a frank discussion about what we should value and why. Why should we care about exploring more designs early on? Why should we aim to speed up engineering velocity? Once people understand and buy into those values, they can make the best decisions on how to apply them.

Culture isn’t just one aspect of the game - it is the game,” Gerstner says. “In the end, an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value. Vision, strategy, marketing, financial management - any management system, in fact - can set you on the right path and can carry you for a while. But no enterprise - whether in business, government, education, health care, or any area of human endeavor - will succeed over the long haul if those elements aren’t parts of its DNA.”

Chris Lofgren, chief executive of Schneider National, the large transportation and logistics company believes that “culture is a foundation upon which you build your long-term strategy. If you build a strategy that isn’t consistent with the culture, it isn’t going to work.

Like Harvester’s, they do not identify and come to grips with the fundamental obstacles and problems that stand in the organization’s way. Looking at most of this product, or listening to the managers who have produced it, you will find an almost total lack of strategic thinking. Instead, you will find high-sounding sentiments together with plans to spend more and somehow “get better.

... a strong resource position can obviate the need for sophisticated design-type strategy. If, instead, there is only a moderate resource position—perhaps a new product idea or a customer relationship—the challenge is to build a sensible and coherent strategy around that resource. Finally, the cleverest strategies, the ones we study down through the years, begin with very few strategic resources, obtaining their results through the adroit coordination of actions in time and across functions.