How can a company deliver continuous, exceptional growth, year after year? J. C. Larreche, a professor of marketing at INSEAD, answers that question in his book, The Momentum Effect: How to Ignite Exceptional Growth . According to the author’s research, momentum-powered firms delivered 80% more shareholder value than their slower rivals. “Momentum leaders are not lucky — they are smart,” he writes in the following excerpt. “They have discovered the source of momentum and, with it, the beginnings of a smarter way to exceptional growth. Managers often talk about ‘riding the wave.’ Momentum leaders aren’t that passive. They live by this motto: First build your wave, then ride it.” Momentum. Most businesses get it at some point — the impression that everything they undertake succeeds effortlessly, as if they’re being carried along by a tailwind that increases their efficiency and propels them on to exceptional growth. Some hold on to it. Most don’t.…
