Executive Interviews: Interview with Christian Stadler on Staying on Top, Always
October 2009 - By Dr. Nagendra V Chowdary

Christian Stadler
visiting scholar at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

• Quite often, the terms, great companies, visionary companies, world-class companies, persistently successful companies, etc., are used synonymously. Rather, there’s some confusion amongst these nomenclature. Are they really same or does each of them have a different connotation?
  I would be surprised if they are all the same. It is important to have a clear understanding how the author selects the companies she/he refers to. In our case the criteria were 1) survive 100 years and 2) beat the market by a factor of 15 over a period of 50 years.

• For creating great companies what do you require the most – visionary leaders or visionary managers or a just combination of both of them?
  Vision is a very loaded term that was particularly popular in the 1990s and I do not like it very much. But I think what you are asking is whether success depends on the top management, on the middle management, or both. I think both is the answer.

• What kind of innovation – product, process, business model or organizational innovation – you think is required for companies to be great companies? All four of them but do not forget to exploit your innovations! What is the role of business schools in preparing either great managers / great leaders for them to create great companies? Any interesting developments that you have observed either in European or American business schools?
  I observe a great deal of ethic courses being added after the financial crisis. However, I am not sure whether they are effective as some of the least responsible leaders went to some of the top schools. Business school is good in doing two things: 1) teaching tools and fundamental business knowledge and 2) creating networks. I think it is an illusion to think that they can change greedy irresponsible people into good ones. This is a responsibility that lies with the parents and possibly society as a whole. If a second level Wall Street analysts earns more in a year than most people in their lifetime I am not surprised that many people think that there is something wrong.