It is when companies are in their middle market stage that they set the course that determines whether they will become great companies. According to Jim Collins, leadership scholar and author of Good to Great and other classic studies, middle market companies need to develop three critical capabilities if they are to become great: extraordinary financial discipline, the ability to target and scale innovation— repeatedly, and the capacity to develop leaders who grow with the business, starting with the CEO.
These leadership abilities are not innate. They can be learned. When middle-market companies choose to pursue greatness for their companies, they benefit more than themselves, for it is from today’s generation of mid-sized companies that tomorrow’s great corporations will emerge.