Goldsmith’s insight serves as the title of one of his most thoughtful books and I presume to add that what got you here won’t even allow you to remain here, no matter whatever and wherever “here” and “there” may be.

In Fast/Forward, Julian Birkinshaw and Jonas Ridderstråle observe that “the formulae for success that worked in prior decades offer only very limited insights into what might work in the future. This is because the business context keeps changing: not in the banal sense that we face increasing levels of technological change and higher levels of competition, but rather in the more fundamental sense that every source of competitive advantage carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. This is a version of the famous ‘Icarus Paradox’; the attribute or capability that makes companies successful in one era makes them susceptible to failure in the next era.”

Clayton Christensen is generally credited with formulating a similar concept, “The Innovator’s Dilemma.” In his eponymous work published in 1997, Christensen notes that the logical, competent decisions of management which are critical to the success of their companies are — or at least can be —also the reasons why they lose their positions of leadership. Leaders face a dilemma: Improve an incumbent product or service, or, create an entirely new product or service that can disrupt the given marketplace and (perhaps) the given industry. Apple and Google are among the few companies that have been able to do both…simultaneously.

In months and years to come, business leaders should indeed keep in mind the meaning and significance of “The Icarus Paradox”: a neologism coined by Danny Miller in his 1990 book by the same name. The term refers to the phenomenon of businesses failing abruptly after a period of apparent success, when their failure is brought about by the very elements that led to their initial success.

Fast/Forward: Make Your Company Fit for the Future was published by Stanford Business Books (April 2017). Those who share my high regard for this book are urged to check out two others: The Three-Box Solution: A Strategy for Leading Innovation in which Vijay Govindarajan provides what he characterizes as “a simple framework that recognizes all three competing challenges face that managers face when leading innovation.” That is, simultaneously managing today’s business while creating tomorrow’s and letting go of yesterday’s values and beliefs that could keep the company stuck in the past.

Also, Dual Transformation: How to Reposition Today’s Business While Creating the Future in which Scott Anthony, Clark Gilbert, and Mark Johnson explain how and why combining the assets and benefits of scale and entrepreneurial spirit will drive massive impact for almost any organization, whatever its size or nature may be.