22 Inverting the Paradox of Excellence
history to gain understanding and develop concepts and tools that will be useful in preparing orga-
nizations to be visionary in the twenty-rst century and beyond. They looked for underlying, time-
less, fundamental principles and patterns that might apply across eras—they aimed to identify those
concepts that would explain the historical trajectory of the visionary companies and would provide
practical guidance to managers building their companies for the twenty-rst century.
The kernel of their ndings comes from comparison analyses; this analytic process was further
combined with the creative processes. One outstanding result that emerged was that almost anyone
can be a key protagonist in building a