Centennials, Alex Hill
Centennials, Alex Hill
List: $15.75 | Sale: $11.03
Club: $7.87

Centennials
The 12 Habits of Great, Enduring Organisations

Author: Alex Hill

Narrator: Theo Solomon

Unabridged: 8 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Penguin

Published: 06/15/2023

Synopsis

Brought to you by Penguin.

Start-ups rarely survive their second birthday. Even established firms in the UK and the US average a life of only fifteen years. So how can your company build and sustain success for decades to come?

Professor Alex Hill has conducted seven years of groundbreaking research into a clutch of organisations that have outperformed their peers for over 100 years - from NASA to the New Zealand All Blacks, from Eton College and the Royal College of Arts to the Royal Marines and the Royal Shakespeare Company. And what he has found is that these very different organisations all share remarkably similar strategies when it comes to building and maintaining excellence and success - strategies that frequently fly in the face of conventional business wisdom.

Here Professor Hill shares the twelve traits that have set these organisations apart for over a century, from the way they analyse success and failure to their approach to finding the best people and the brightest new ideas. In so doing, he identifies the strategies and habits that you can employ in your company to create a strong and stable core and to ensure the same long-term prosperity. In short, he shows you how to build a promising enterprise into an enduring, great organisation.

©2023 Professor Alex Hill (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Reviews

Goodreads review by Peter on January 01, 2025

I quite liked this leadership book. It is difficult to find something that provides a different slant on leadership. The concept of long lasting successful organisations is an interesting one and given that 90% of business don’t last finding examples is not easy. By its very nature and structure we......more

Goodreads review by Tõnu on March 21, 2025

What does it take to become and remain a 100+ year organization (initially misread the title as company). Author discusses a number of organizations (NASA, New Zealand All Blacks, Eton College, Royal College of Art, Royal Marines, Royal Shakespeare Company, Disney) that have lasted over 100 years an......more

Goodreads review by Dora on April 18, 2025

Centennial: Adjective "Lasting a hundred years." I bought this book because I was curious to know how organizations stood the test of time, and there is something about lists like 'the 10 things..., top 5 things...' that psychologically tell you that you'll not have to be bogged down by so much infor......more

Goodreads review by Gaitri on July 08, 2025

Alex Hill's Centennials eloquently explains what makes institutions endure for more than a century. Using extensive case studies, he demonstrates how genuinely outstanding organizations embrace change at its disruptive edges while preserving "a stable nucleus of values developed over time" (p. xv).......more

Goodreads review by Nicola on August 10, 2025

Useful, interesting and well written. Lots to think about and I would read more by this author.......more

Quotes

An instant classic.

If you want to know why some businesses succeed beyond expectation and others incomprehensibly fail, the answer is here. Every CEO should be given a copy with their morning coffee.

Most people think in straight lines. A leads to B. Alex thinks sideways, and comes up with intuitions few will spot, but which are obvious and readily applicable. That is what makes this book both useful, and a joy to read.

Brilliantly clear, concise and readable. Both a window into centennial organisations and an incredibly helpful strategic toolkit for sustaining and developing them.

If you want to learn what it takes to achieve truly sustainable success in an organisation, then this is a book for you. The examples of organisations which have stood the test of time and, frankly, those which haven't, are illuminating because of the fundamental features which Alex has uncovered. This book will be of value to not just those who are contemplating setting up a new venture, but also to those who are temporary custodians of existing great organisations and whose ultimate goal must surely be to add value.

Centennials is an entertaining and thought-provoking exploration of a central idea of leadership; how to effectively balance stability with innovation and change. The core principles of this book have added positively to my work since I first came across Alex and his research. The concepts captured within Centennials are brought to life with simple clarity and real world engaging stories and I would recommend any leader add this to their library.

Professor Hill brings his deep knowledge of organisational structures and a brilliantly perceptive eye to a number of the leading organisations in the UK and beyond, organisations that are leaders in their area and have sustained that success over many years - in some cases, for centuries. The result is a remarkable book that is full of satisfying insights, from the elegant (stable core, disruptive edge) to the unfashionable (get better, not bigger) to the surprising (make time for random). Centennials has made me see an organisation that I thought I knew very well with fresh eyes.

I enjoyed Centennials a great deal. I believe Alex has captured some simple principles that can allow individuals, teams, organisations and beyond to navigate complexity in a manner which brings purpose, stability and evolution. It's a text I will keep returning to!

Centennials brilliantly draws on over a decade's worth of insight to capture many of the vital elements that distinguish sustainable success. Anyone looking for an engaging way to stimulate deep reflection in order to create purposeful, long-term success should read this book.

If you want your organisation to be a success for the next 100 years and beyond I suggest you read this.

Add to Cart
Add to Wish List