Management style, why Kodak failed and Nissan Survived

In my current course I am taking in Corporate Innovation we had to do a case study about Kodak, we had to analyze why Kodak lost market leadership in its industry.

The case discussed many factors that led to Kodak failure to maintain the lead position, but one thing that really caught my attention and I can relate to was “resistance to change.”

Kodak Stock holders saw the necessity for a change in leadership and the Company hired new CEO, but the CEO failed to change the management style inside Kodak. Middle managers resisted or refused to see the need to change in management style, they wanted to do business the old way. The CEO failed to fire those who resisted change and he was not able to start a new operation with new team which eventually cost the company huge market share.

In contract, when Nissan faced the same issue few years back, a new CEO was hired and the firs thing he did was to “fire the old team who resisted change” and started with a management team who was ready to see the reality and embrace new management style.

In this time of economic crisis, things need to be changed, companies will need to embrace new realities and adjust to market trends, and those who will adapt will have better chance of surviving than those we refused to change.