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Excellence Is a Form of Deviance

I once had a conversation with the CEO of a small company that had been acquired by one of largest corporations in the world. The small company was unusually profitable due, to a great extent, to its innovative and nonhierarchical management practices. At the time of the acquisition, the CEO of the smaller company emphasized the fact that the company's unique practices were the secret of its high performance and that the larger company might be tempted to alter the very thing that made the small company successful. The CEO was assured by the head of the larger company that this would not happen, and that if it did, he should feel empowered to resist.

Within months of the acquisition, the CEO's fears became ...

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