Long Term Vision: The Built-to-Last Chair Test

Built-to-last, long-term think­ing has the biggest impact, over time.

In ear­ly Sep­tem­ber, I had a chance to tour the Notre Dame Cam­pus in South Bend, Indi­ana, and wow, was it a great experience!

The his­to­ry was fas­ci­nat­ing, the cam­pus was stun­ning, the sta­di­um mind-blow­ing. Imag­ine 80,000 peo­ple in a col­lege foot­ball sta­di­um — incom­pre­hen­si­ble from a Cana­di­an perspective.

What struck me most was how every­thing was built to last – right down to the chairs in their cam­pus eater­ies. Our tour guide explained that these chairs are just one small exam­ple of the founders’ long-term vision to build an endur­ing organization.

These chairs have already been there for 80 years and were designed to last at least 100. At the time, sam­ples of dif­fer­ent styles were brought in and then thrown down the stair wells. The ones that with­stood the beat­ing were the ones they bought. Sounds like a fun exper­i­ment! I’d love to see how some of our fur­ni­ture today stands that test!

There are hun­dreds of exam­ples of what Notre Dame U. lead­er­ship has done to make sure they built an endur­ing lega­cy: the stands they took to make sure things hap­pened, and the sac­ri­fices they made. That long-term think­ing has a big impact on cul­ture — a sense of pride that infus­es and inspires peo­ple to con­tin­ue their vision, long after the founders are gone.

The whole expe­ri­ence made me think about what lead­ers can do, in this world of rapid change. While there’s always a need to inno­vate quick­ly and focus on short-term results, built-to-last, long-term think­ing has the biggest impact, over time.

The Chal­lenge

• What, in your busi­ness, needs a ​‘chair test’ to make sure it works in the very, very long term?
• What cur­rent­ly fails your ver­sion of a ​‘chair test’ that you need to change?