What I Want 100-Year-Old Children to Say

Let me speak of management's time horizon. Corporate life expectancy is said to be around thirty years; most companies measure in quarters, plan in single years, and call three-to-five-year plans "long-term." As a listed company we fully honor our duties on that clock. But we carry another clock besides — one that ticks in centuries.

In a hundred years I will be gone; so will today's officers, employees, and most of our products. Yet something can remain: a way of living — never mocking a challenge, rejoicing with companions, cherishing the one person before you.

To have the children of that century say, "They were not a company that left buildings, but one that left a culture" — that is our farthest goal.

Carrying a hundred-year clock changes today's decisions: you choose the principled over the immediately profitable, because what survives a century is not financial statements but the way principles were kept. In what units does your company's clock tick?

What do you work for?